Two bags and a pineapple

Actually, the sum of our 2018 weekend retreat at High Leigh, Friday morning to mid-afternoon Monday, theme 'bags', was:

• 20 people, 7 or whom were first time retreaters
• 20 machines, plus spares and one emergency delivery from home
• 4 ironing boards and irons
• 60 breakfasts
• 80 morning tea/coffee breaks with biscuits
• 80 lunches
• 60 afternoon tea/coffee break with cake
• 60 dinners
• a guess the baby quilter competition - "how hard was that?"
• a how many buttons in the jar competition
• 2 weekender bags - "how many layers?"
• 3 bionic bags - "never again!"
• several holdall/tote style bags
• quite a few small bags
• several quilts and wallhangings
• some items for our exhibition sales table
• City & Guilds' homework/technique samples
• 1 pineapple doorstop
• 2 Linus Quilts - see more below
• 3 Little Dresses for Africa - see more below
• 3 visitors
• fab, fab, fab weather.

Many thanks to Sarah for volunteering to organise the entertainment, with prizes too. To make it fairer - our younger members were asked to bring their baby/toddler photo in B&W rather than colour.

Guess the Baby Quilter
 (apologies for the photo quality)

And here are the projects:

Big bags:

Little bags:

   

     

 Quilts:

Little Dresses for Africa:

The group supports two charities, this one and Project Linus (see below). Many thanks, again, to Pat for making these lovely dresses over the weekend.

Why does the stash not go down though? Because we see lots of lovely new fabric and we top up the stash with fabric that's 'just right' for dresses and shorts!

Linus Quilts:

Prior to the retreat, we decided that everyone should make and bring one log cabin block with them, red centre, blue 'logs', no obviously 'girly' prints, 12 1/2" unfinished. Several people made more than one block. There were 32 blocks in all, enough blocks to make 2 Linus Quilts suitable for teenagers, in particular, teenage lads. Thankyou ladies for your generosity and time making the blocks and to Pat for volunteering to put the blocks together and make up the quilts.

And still the stash remains the same because we buy fabric that's 'just right' for a Linus quilt!