Retreat!

Let the good times roll, if only for about 48 hours!

I joined the Northwest Arkansas MQG this year. Katrina is the current president of the chapter and told me I needed to go to the retreat. I signed up even though I didn’t have my heart in it at the time because at this point in my life, who wants to schlep all that stuff, especially a 45-pound sewing machine? 

One of the luxuries of retirement for me is being able to have a bit more time for planning and packing. While the retreat was only for two days, my brain always thinks mostly about what projects I’m taking. I knew I wanted to take the baby quilt project I cut out the previous week for the new great-grandson that is coming (yay!!!). The day before I left I threw in another project just in case I finished piecing the baby quilt top. And, instead of The Beaut, I took my almost-30-year-old Pfaff 7570 that now belongs to my son. It had a spa day the week before the trip because I didn’t want any surprises. After refreshing the old brain cells on how to thread the machine and wind the bobbins, I was ready to go.

The retreat was held at a beautiful camp in eastern Oklahoma, a 3-hour drive from my home. It was the first weekend of November and the drive was glorious with fall color—I enjoyed soaking all of it up while my radio blasted tunes from the 70s and I sang along as loudly as I could. When I arrived at the camp, I found Katrina and unloaded everything. She told me earlier that morning that she had to fight off a lot of quilters that wanted my table! I think that’s how multiple members already knew who I was when I arrived…

Lots of wonderful people, tons of inspiration, good food and fun games—it was a great retreat. The things I would do differently: bring The Beaut (I realized how much I rely on my purring, smooth-running, knee-lifting, and presser foot-hovering machine), bring a better chair, and that’s it! I was able to piece about 90% of the top. I allowed myself breaks to visit and meet others—a high schoolmate who’s late sister was a good friend, two sisters who’s late father was someone I worked with for many years of my government career, and a Girl Gang member that moved up to northwest Arkansas several years ago.

Bringing the second project was unnecessary, but I was toying with the idea of working on it Sunday. We only had until noon to work on anything before we had to bug out, and Katrina and I stayed in our room until after 10:00 a.m. talking and drinking coffee. Time well spent!

Precut pieces are the way to go!

Sashing moving right along

Working on the layout

Katrina at the next table; she accomplished a lot!

It was nice to chain piece the baby quilt--the Pfaff behaved perfectly!

I had so much fun that I sent thank-you emails to various members that were in charge of the things that made it all happen--that's how good it was. And I also prepaid my 2026 dues just to make sure I can come to the spring 2026 retreat!

It's good to get away with people who enjoy the same hobbies as you, just to see what's going on at their table. I don't consider myself a modern quilter, but I love and appreciate what modern quilters do. I was worried that my project would not be considered worthy of working on during the retreat, but most of the attendees were working on projects that had been sitting on their backburners for years (like most of mine), and that made me feel much better about what I was working on.

I have some updates I’ll share in another post. In the meantime, go make!