Saturday at the Retreat

What a wonderful time we've had since my last post! Thursday evening dinner was yummy! We all enjoyed the pasta & salad buffet and Brenda & I both sampled the delicious coconut cake for desert. Then we all headed downstairs to Jan's shop-away-from-home to start our usual large piles of stash that we accumulate to purchase on Sunday morning. All the pretty fabrics and wonderful patterns and, of course, Sharon's pretty Crescent Colors cottons and Belle Soie silks too!

We all wandered into the meeting room for our evening stitch-in. Jan handed out our Retreat Exclusive Kit that she designed. It's just beautiful! All 6 of us sitting in a group, stitching away on various projects. Brenda & Candace both started working on the retreat kit. It was so relaxing to sit and stitch with this wonderful bunch of special friends. We were all up late - it broke up about midnight, when we all headed upstairs to bed. Friday was starting at 8 for breakfast so we needed our sleep!

Friday morning started at the breakfast buffet. I had a delicious bacon/cheese/red pepper omlet, fruit, and a bran muffin. Then it was back downstairs for another morning of stitching and conversation. Lunchtime brought us back upstairs, reluctantly, to the buffet, and then back downstairs for more shopping and stitching. Sally arrived around 1:30 and surprised a few retreaters when they arrived back downstairs and there she was! We had a break scheduled for 4 to 5:45, but no one really went upstairs to rest. Dinner was in the Fluttering Duck pub and it was afterwards that we got the chef's delicious chocolate cheesecake to top off our meal. (We brought the left-over pieces down to enjoy for the rest of the weekend - they are in the little refrigerator outside our meeting room!)

After everyone was back downstairs, we voted on our favorite grab-bag container. This years theme was Sheep and/or Friendship. Brenda won for her pretty Kit & Bixby Loving Longwools bag! Then we all got our grab bags and the next 45 minutes was spent oo-ing and ah-ing over everyone's contents. Sally really liked all the things I had picked for her, which always makes me happy. And Brenda had my name so I'm the lucky one who got the winner - the tote with Kit & Bixby's Loving Longwools on the front and kitty fabric lining the inside! And she even changed the dog on the LL piece to a kitty! I ADORE it Brenda! {{hugs}} Then it was on to our stitching for the evening. I pushed myself a little past my limit with my bad elbow (which I'm still paying for today) but I did finish my 1st incentive piece - SamSarah's Red White & Blue. I haven't kitted up my other one yet, but will sometime next week. Brenda, Candace, Jan, & I were the last ones downstairs and we headed up about 12:30.

This morning has been a repeat of yesterday, altho Jan passed out 2 wonderful kits that are part of our package. One is SamSarah's Star Heart...for You and the other is Homespun Elegance's "Stash Keep". She also designed a replacement pattern for it - "Ewe Treasures" which is what I'll stitch for it. She sure is spoiling us this year! Lunch was at the Fluttering Duck since the Buffet room was closed for lunch today. Right now we are all slowly filtering back down to the meeting room for the afternoon of games and stitching.

More later...