Stay at home retreat
 

My guild came up with a great activity. Not everyone is able to go on the expensive quilt retreats, so we now have several stay at home retreats. They are very popular and affordable so everyone can enjoy a retreat.


November Stay at Home Retreat November 3 & 4:

For those who are interested, the dates for the November stay at home retreat is November 3,4. The cost will be $30.00. Your name will be put on the list when we receive your money, 50 registrants will be accepted. Everyone will bring their own projects to work on, some classes will be offered. The retreat will be at the Chelmsford Senior Center from 9am to 5 pm Saturday and Sunday. Bring your own lunch, something to share and have a good time sewing with old friends and new. This is usually a lot of fun. If there is some technique you wish to learn, let Anne Gallo know and we will try and schedule a workshop during the retreat. As usual we will need 6 volunteers to bring iron and ironing boards, irons are setup in a separate room, no irons will be allowed in the big room. The retreat relys on volunteers helping us setup and takedown. We will have someone in charge of both days and we will have diagrams available of how we have to leave the room when we are done.


I just wanted to share this great idea.

That sounds like fun! Our guild has free access to our county extension office meeting room. We use it for our monthly meetings at 6:30 (with a sit and sew available from 1 to 6) then one Saturday a month from 10-4 with a lunch break. No charge, but very similar to yours. We often have a "program" with a specific technique or pattern you can do, or you can do your own thing. Some just come and visit! We also have several small bee groups, one for baby quilts, quilts of Valor, quilting software classes, etc. that are seperate and done in homes. Some of us have branched off and have mini quilt retreats at each others' home, with 2 to 4 of us and sometimes stay overnite! Lots of fun.

Both of these sound terrific, I just moved and am trying to find quilting activities locally. Applique I know I can't join you but still curious as to what city you are in.

Also check with quilt shops. Many in my area offer the same type event anywhere from once a week to once a month.

Sounds great. Good luck to all who join in the fun. I used to have set 'days' to go into my quilt room and sew, but have not been able to due much lately. Dh needs come first, then I quilt.

That's an awesome idea!

As PaperPrincess says quilt shops sometimes offer open sew days or quilt bee days. My guild has many bees at a couple different stores. Some are just bring something and work on it, some are specialized like handwork or FMQ. I go to one of the bees as often as I can make it.

Appliqué,
is this event (Nov 3-4) open to others outside of the guild? I'm only a few miles away.

We do this in my group, only we do a whole day, about 4 times a year. We use the community room at the fire station, or sometimes the community room in our PUD building. No fees, bring whatever you want to work on and snacks to share.

We also do our own retreats. We've used retreat centers in the past, but now are at a hotel where we get a great group discount. When we go shop-hopping, if we tell the shops that we're staying at the the hotel they give us a discount.

We have a yearly "Lock-In" at our county Extension Office. This year it is scheduled to start at 3:00 p.m. Friday and run until 7:00 a.m. Saturday. We do potluck on Friday evening and have assorted snacks and coffee all night. We have door prizes and a free table (just in case anyone has something in their sewing room that they don' t want or need any more). It is lots of fun. We only have one Rule -- NO SLEEPING. Last year we had 13 who lasted all night. The first time I attended, there were only three or four who lasted all night. We all look forward to this every year.

It is a great idea...a guild that I belong to is testing their first one in October but I will be in Scotland so I will have to get the scoop on how it goes.