Home from Retreat

Received a call from my daughter Natalie this afternoon. Since I had not posted retreat results, she was wondering if I was home yet. Yes!! I am home. Going to retreats is fun but it sure can be exhausting. I arrived home late yesterday afternoon and I was tired!!  Fell asleep on the couch for a nap before dinner (Hubby cooked) and did absolutely nothing in the evening except catch up with the shows I had saved on the DVR. Is that lazy or what?? LOL Sure was nice though.

Arrived up at the casino on Monday afternoon and set up all of my equipment.  The guys from St. Cloud Sewing Center were at the doors to help us unload all of our supplies. That was great!! Since this was a machine embroidery retreat, most of us came with two machines; one for machine embroidery and one for general sewing. Some of the ladies bring their whole thread cart, computers, extra small table, irons, etc. The retreat went until Friday afternoon. The food was great and the beds were very comfortable in the hotel. My friend, Maureen, and I were roommates. I served her coffee in bed in the morning! She is a slow starter in the morning. LOL  Her husband is going to have to fulfill some big expectations! ROFLOL What ever I can do to help the situation.


The first project we worked on was a felt bag with a mylar applique' on it. It will make a great Christmas gift bag. The snow flakes were embroidered on first, then we placed the mylar snowman applique' on and embroidered the texture all over the mylar, then embroidered the scarf and nose on the snowman. They turned out very cute and shiny. I still have the sides and handles to put on the bag but I want to embroider a name on the bag first.

Another project we worked on was a purse. I still have the lining and pockets to finish and then it is done.

Since most of the work for the purse was done in the hoop it was a challenge. Some of the machines did not like the layers of peltex, fabric, and buckram. One of the things I found out at this retreat was, if you are traveling with electronic sewing machines and are doing heavy duty sewing - BRING A BATTERY BACKUP/SURGE PROTECTOR!!! I have always traveled with plenty of surge protection but never battery backup for my sewing machines. The issue some of us had, was that we were experiencing mini brown outs when all of the machines where running and it caused other machines to experience operating problems. It was a little disappointing because I was not able to work on all of the projects but I still enjoyed the social time. St. Cloud Sewing Center works very hard to provide us with fun projects plus a lot of fun gifts and door prizes.

On Tuesday evening, Kenny and Lisa from Embroidery Library and Karline from Urban Threads brought a trunk show of embroidered items for us to see. It was awesome!!! I loved some of the edgy designs that Urban threads has.

Kenny from Embroidery Library



Karline from Urban Threads (center) and Janelle from St. Cloud Sewing Center (on right)

 

Retreat Photos

 Working Hard!!

Lots of supplies!

Dedicated workers!

Linda and Judy with their purses. Great job!!

Sharing!

How about having some Mascot's?? LOL Just too cute!

Enough thread??  No, I don't think so!  LOL

I still think scrapbookers have more "stuff" at retreats then quilters or machine embroiderers. Not sure anybody left anything at home. Thank goodness the casino had plenty of large carts for us to haul all of our things in and out with. Too bad it is another whole year until we have this retreat again.

Beth