Thursday, February 18, 2010

ANOTHER GREAT QUILT RETREAT

FEBRUARY BROWN BAG RETREAT

We had so much fun at our Brown Bag Quilting Retreat at
The Creation Station Fabric and Quilt Shop located in Buellton, California.

This cute quilt shop is owned by Patrick, here cutting fabric inside the store,and his wife, Dawn, here in the classroom/retreat room. As you can see the walls of the retreat room are all painted with wild flowers growing everywhere. The floors are also painted with grass, flowers, rocks and more. Even the bathrooms are decorated so creativelySo inspirations abound...We drove up to Buellton on Thursday and met our friends the Nances at the
Flying Flags RV Resort in Buellton, where we stayed for the weekend in our RVs. Lynn and I head over to the Retreat Center at The Creation Station by 7 am-wait in line
(this year in the POURING RAIN) and then sew and quilt from 8 am on Friday
till whenever that night (we were there till 10:30 pm). The guys hung out at the RV Resort, playing cards, etc. (They had plans to go fishing-but couldn't since it rained all day
Friday and Saturday). We returned by 9 the next morning and quilted till 12:45 am.
Returned on Sunday morning by 8:30 am and quilted till the end of the retreat at 3 pm.

Retreats are such a great way to get a lot accomplished, starting and finishing quilt tops, and other projects, finishing UFO's and WISP's.
I finished the quilt top for my soon to be grandson (due in May) and made
the 20 blocks for my niece's queen size quilt. It is so much fun sewing with other women who love sewing and quilting as much as I do. Retreats are inspiring and educational--as we share ideas and projects. Meeting up with friends I don't get to see often enough is the best!

I'm in the middle between my quilting buddiesLynn on the left and Nancy on the right.
(That is Lynn's gorgeous quilt made of hand dyed Batiks in the background!)
Nancy is also the hostess with the mostest for all the Brown Bag Retreats. Yes, that's right, she gets the privilege to attend all 11 Brown Bag Retreats held each year at The Creation Station---
a lucky lady for sure!A few more of our quilting friends, l to r: Una (that's a long "u" na, for those of us who often say her name wrong!), Barbara, and Carolyn.
As you can see they are all busy working on their quilts so time for looking at the camera!

At the Brown Bag Retreats, named for the "brown bag" of goodies each quilter receives on our individual 6 ft sewing table (each quilter has a 6 ft table all to herself!). We have a pot luck dinner on Friday nights. Saturday we are treated to a homemade soup and salad bar, soups made by Patrick, and homemade breads made by Nancy. YUMMY!! (My favorite soup is his Baked Potato Soup-it is the best!!

As I mentioned, The Creation Station hosts 11 Brown Bag Retreats. I'm so excited because I am attending 4 this year, returning in April, July and September! Can't wait for the next one!

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