Sunday, February 18, 2007

Gimli Retreat 2007 the beginning.

OMG I had the most wonderful weekend. I was at my first quilting retreat ever. It was a first for a few things. I left home by myself with no husband , no kids, no mom. I for the past 42 years never went away by myself for something that I wanted to do and I didn't have to worry about someone elses packing, entertainment for the kids or husband or listen to what I should be doing. IT FELT GOOD!!!

Well to say I had know idea what I should bring. I brought a couple of projects to work on (did not look at them once) besides the material for class. Since I didn't know what I would end up doing or not doing, my bag for fabric stash and tools ended up in my big suitcase. I brought a variety of stash. You would think i would pack the obvious like thread in the colorway I was bringing for my classes. NOT. Beige I brought beige. I am not a beige person I love bright colors and sparklies. I did remember to bring my rotary cutters and rulers and mats oh and my foot pedal for the machine, pretty important thing a foot pedal is. One lady there mentioned someone forgot theirs. I was very happy it wasn't me.

I felt so much like the new kid in school. Slightly panicky and excited. It was like the first day of school and you don't know anyone. and then wait for it, a face you recognise. Yippee I have a friend here. My friend Linda M arrived with her friend Ursalla and I felt so much better. It didn't take long for us to figure out where our classes that we signed up were and we grabbed our seats and started to set up. We were lucky both of our classes were in the same room so we didn't have to pack up and move at the end of class we just were able to set up shop for the weekend.

Since class wasn't scheduled to start until 7:30( 8:30 because of a kitchen mishap) I started poking around in the other class rooms to see if I recognised anyone and nosy around other peoples projects. I am soooo glad I did, it took about 15 minutes for me to realize I had a bad case of stash envy. Fabric and colours in every ones stash looked so much better than mine, and I brought a good bunch of stash, a large suitcase full. Some ladies brought tubs of fabric. I was in fabric heaven.... I had finally found people that were just like me... Fabric People...I was not alone, I wasn't the only one.
I am tired now so I think I will retreat to my bedroom to sleep. I will talk more about this tomorrow

3 comments:

Sweet P said...

About 18 months ago I went on a Quilter's Weekend I had planned for one of my on-line groups. It was the first time in 43 years (at that time) I had gone away by myself too.

Isn't it tons of fun to spend time with other quilters? I absolutely love it.

I'm glad to hear you had a great time and don't worry too much about other's stashes. They probably looked at what you had and fell in love it just like you fell in love with their fabric.

Linda Mullen said...

So where's the rest of it? LOL. Sure tease us!!!

Patti said...

Stash envy is such a common malady. I used to tell the students in my classes to accept the following fact and they'd enjoy class a lot more - "There will always been someone who sews faster than you do, and always someone whose fabric you like much better than your own." I think this is doubly true for retreats.