Guild retreat

Three things to be happy about:
(1) lots of scraps
(2) tandem bikes
(3) Charlie Brown and Lucie

Last month my guild had its annual retreat at The National Conference Center in Leesburg, Virginia.  It was very relaxing and fun-filled, at a great place to get away for a time.

We each got a nice tote bag filled with goodies; the bag was embroidered by Sarita, one of our member attendees.

Now this retreat had something for everybody - there was a lot to hold your interest.

One of the workshops we had was on improvisational piecing led by Cheryl, based on the book Improv Patchwork by Maria Shell.

See some of the fruit of our labors at the left!

I'll definitely get right back into this book, it was a lot of fun once I stopped trying to be so "exact!"

And houses - I love houses!

Jennifer made the quilt, and she led the foundation paper piecing workshop for the houses in "It Takes a Village."

She also tossed some little 2-1/2" patterns and a New York beauty block into the mix - just to make sure we got it!

Deb led a Half Square Triangle mystery challenge, handing out random HST patterns to be sewn into a block; the finished product could be any size you chose.

As usual we had plenty of time to work on our UFO's and WIP's; I knocked out some more of those little wonky churn dash blocks I was working on at last year's retreat ... no hurry!

Notice the super-large HST block by Renea!

A quilt appraising lecture and quilt appraising was done by Nancy Franklin of Atlanta, GA, and Renee Anderson from the African American History Museum delivered a textile lecture.

Looking forward to next year's retreat, sew forth and sew on ...