One of the guilds I belong to had a quilt retreat this past Saturday.  It was my very first quilting retreat EVER!  I thought to myself, “What on earth am I going to do for almost 12 hours at a quilting retreat?”  I mostly have longarm quilting to catch up on, so I had to really think about what to bring.   A friend suggested I bring something I hadn’t been able to work on in quite some time, some of my UFOs.  Well, I have a couple of those, so I took along plenty of stuff, sure I’d finish each and every one of the 4 items in my bag.  As it turns out, there is a LOT of socializing at these retreats and not as much work gets done as you might expect.  Actually, in my case, it was AVOIDANCE.  I started this quilt over a year ago and, after volunteering on the board of 2 separate quilt guilds and in between all the eye surgeries, this project got pushed aside, balled up, messed up, and out of the way on so many occasions that I had forgotten about it.  At this point, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to finish even what I did on Saturday and this project would be pushed to the back burner again and again.  And, it probably will, because I just have too many ideas floating around in my pea brain, demanding my attention.  It can get really frustrating, and I try to avoid quilting challenges, because that just sets my mind awhirl once again.  But, I am SOOO happy that I got this portion of the quilt done.  It will be the foundation for future dabblings to add to the quilt.  So, here is a sneak peek of what I worked on Saturday.

And, here are some pictures of folks who also attended the retreat.

If you are a quilter and haven’t yet attended a retreat yet, you should try it!  Even if you walk away with only one thing completed, you will feel like you’ve accomplished a lot!