Quilt Retreat at Becky's

I've been so fortunate to make the acquaintance of several wonderful new ladies since moving to the farm.    Valerie and Kathi are members of one of the quilt guilds I joined and the three of us decided back in October that by February we would need a break from Old Man Winter.   So, we booked 2 nights and 3 days at Becky's Quilt Barn for a small group of our quilting friends.

Oh, how I wish I had taken my camera with me this week as we had our mid-winter break Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.   Becky's Barn is only about an hour north of our farm, so that made it easy to get there, even if it was snowing sideways the whole way there!   Becky's is a for real barn that she and her husband took 5 years to convert into an awesome quilt retreat.

There are 3 bedrooms on the main floor with full bathrooms and 3-4 twin sized beds in each room.   And upstairs in what used to be the hay loft there is a giant open space with twin beds comfortably tucked in under the eaves.   All the beds in the whole place are covered in hand made quilts, made of course, by Becky.  

The center downstairs of the "barn" is a large, well lit open area with sewing desks for up to 15 sewers, 2 large cutting stations for rotary cutting, several ironing stations and plenty of room to move around in between them.   Toward the back of the downstairs is a fully functioning large country kitchen, complete with pots and pans and stove and refrigerator.   Becky doesn't cook for you, you bring your own food and have plenty of space to prepare your meals on the wide open counters.

We each brought a meal to share with our group of seven....and had enough food that we could have stayed another day without making a run to the grocery store.   I guess quilters not only like to quilt, we also like to cook and share our goodies with each other.   And we ate like queens!   Thanks, girls for all the delicious food you prepared.

 As a surprise for my new friends, I embroidered and sewed up aprons for all of us to wear as we worked on our projects.   It was fun to have the ladies pick out which apron they wanted to take home with them.

The saying on the front pocket is "I cannot count my day complete til needle, thread, and fabric meet.".   How very true that is for most quilters!  

There were quilts everywhere....above the doors....

 ....wherever there was a blank wall.....

......and adorning the walls of the bedrooms.   How cool is this snowman quilt?

Check out the detailed quilting done by Becky on her longarm quilting machine.    Sigh.....one can only dream of playing with a longarm someday.....

As for me, I was able to put together this wallhanging that I plan on using in my studio.   Now I just have to quilt it and it will be ready to hang.

And I made another wall hanging for the studio.    It was so much fun to sew in our jammies, eat yummy foods, and chat with a great group of like-minded ladies for days.    Our last night there we had hot chocolate with homemade marshmallows I made the weekend before retreat and cut into snowflake shapes.   Too.   Much.  Fun.

Kathi was content to eat the marshmallows all by themselves, powdered sugar dropping on her sweatshirt....and a big smile on her face.

All in all, we had a ball and have already booked another retreat with Becky for next year.    That says it all when you haven't even left the retreat yet and you're ready to book another one.   I think this will become a yearly tradition for us.

Gettin' my quilt on,
Debbie