Retreat 2009

I spent two solid days at this year's Houston Chapter of the American Sewing Guild's 2009 retreat. As last year, we went to the Northwest Conference Center just north of town. I arrived on Friday afternoon and spent until about 2:00 pm on Sunday sewing, eating, sleeping and chatting with 26 other sewers. When you get a group of women together with such varied tastes and skill levels you could have a disaster but, once again, it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. There are members of the chapter who only come to the retreat so it was good to catch up with them again. Then there are the folk that you seem to see at all the events. In that case it great to see them in action.



The National Charity project this year is pillowcases for Ronald McDonald House in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Some people brought fabric and the storage locker was cleared out of all its cotton. Although some of us did not even make one at the Retreat, 89 pillowcases were finished and no kits were leftover for us to take home and finish. I made a dozen of them last year and I am trying to limit my participation this year as projects like this seem to take over my life sometimes. I did see about a dozen ways to construct pillowcases and I willl try to post a summary of the techniques I saw demonstrated.



I went to the retreat with two quilt tops to complete, one bias rayon scarf I have been wanting to try and a checkbook/wallet kit I won at the KAQG as a door prize. Back in 2006 I bought a Charlotte Angotti quilt kit and I have worked on it off and on since then. I got that top finished but now I realize that I need to add some significant borders if I want to use it on any of the beds in this house. I also started on another Angotti quilt top. That one will take a while a get finished but I am about one-third of the way through the construction and I am quite pleased with how it is coming together. Here is a shot of the quilt top (minus borders) that I completed.

I did not get anything else completed but I am quite content to have only one thing to show for all my hard work.

One of the best thing about these retreats is that people show up wth stuff to share with others. This year about 10 cartons of fabric from the storage locker was available for taking as well as one woman's stash of bolts of fabulous fabric and another woman's wonderful silks, patterns and other bits that she was giving away before she moves homes. It was like a feeding frenzy but very polite. We all have enough in our own resouce centers (read 'stash') to last us quite a while but some fabulous corduroy and several good patterns really caught my eye and made it home with me. I guess I better start culling out some well aged fabric in my own resource center to make room for the new, to me, acquisitons.

Oh, and if the fabulous Joanne is reading this... you can now start talking about the threes B's again... that is boobs, butts and bugs. You had to be there!

Have a good week!