Dyeing to Stitch Retreat, Part 2

Welcome back! Here are some more pictures from our retreat weekend, which was an absolutely wonderful time! My classes were so much fun (perhaps I'm only speaking for myself! Ha!), and it was a fabulous time chatting with lots of familiar friends and newly-made ones.

I'm sad to say I didn't get any pictures of the class pieces that the other designers taught, which is surprising, since I had several opportunities to get some. (How did this happen?) But the truth of it is, we were having so much fun laughing and being silly that it didn't occur to me to take any class piece photos, and I didn't have my camera when we were revealing them to those in attendance.

The only ones I have to share with you are mine, which sounds awfully selfish, but I don't mean for it to be. 🙁

The theme for the retreat was It's A Celebration! So I decided to combine two things that I love to celebrate in October: the gorgeous orange of jack o'lanterns and my sweet Sabrina's birthday. 

This is Jack's Bash:

The verse reads:

Here in the rust and autumn bower,
    the knobby gourd and bitter flower,
We merry-make and sing Hooray!
    to our friend Jack on his birthday.

(The word "rust" contains an old-style letter s, which looks like a half-crossed lower-case f.)

Nicole Neville stitched the model beautifully and in record time, and I love love love the moulding that Sherri at Total Framing used for it!

The kitted piece that the class actually worked on is called Jack's Birthday Tart, and it accompanied the larger sampler, using all the same threads:

Jack's Bash will be released next fall, and most likely Jack's Birthday Tart will be also. (The tart will probably have a companion or two to go with it.) I thought it was a lot of fun to make, and very easy!

By the way, this was the sunrise that greeted me every morning from the balcony of the hotel room:

And as the sun rose higher, the beach grew more crowded…

On Saturday evening we had a huge banquet, and each person dressed in something that denoted the era in which they were born. The food was beautifully presented, and Ann and Pat (despite the challenges of the elevators being inaccessible for the better part of the day) did a wonderful job as our hostesses…

 

 

And the winner of the costume contest was…. Barefoot and Pregnant!

What a crazy good time that was! The door prizes were amazing, the cheering was raucus, and the whole room was full of stitchy friends who were relieved that the elevators started working just in time for the party, as the banquet was held on the 11th floor. 🙂

I'd like to thank Ann and Pat and Sybil and Norma and all the wonderful people who helped pull this retreat together. You all are the best!

I'll be back soon with Part 3, which isn't so much the retreat as it is what we did after the retreat was over. See you soon!