An Excellent Stitching Retreat

This weekend I attended Pastime Pieces’ first stitching retreat, held at the Michaelite Retreat Centre a few kilometres NW of London ON. It was a peaceful, secluded setting. The weather was fabulous and conducive to walks around the property.

Our lodgings were immaculately clean and comfortable. From my experience the beds at these places tend to be very hard so I brought my foam twin bed pad and my own duvet. With those in place, my bed felt very similar to the one at home. 

Some of the contents of the goodie bag, compliments of Pastime Pieces:

Snack tongs:

My tablemates, Lynda, Chris, and, Blaire had treats to share. Some thread beds and 

Lynda also gave us each a little snap bag.

My tablemates:

Another Kris (of Kraftnkris on YouTube) handed out little ort buckets. At least I think it was her (sure hope I got that right)

The room we stitched in wasn’t huge but we were all able to work fairly comfortably. It had excellent lighting.

For the draw on Saturday night, everyone at my table won something. I won a little kit complete with pattern, threads, fabric, and mounting mats.

Of course, Marlene had a little pop-up shop with lots of samples on display. I could not resist purchasing a couple more Animal Crackers charts, Miss Hazel the squirrel and Clovis the badger:

Keeping in mind I’m attempting to finish or fully finish a piece before I start another, I was very pleased at all the stitching I got done over the weekend. 

I finished all the stitching on the Birds of a Feather piece:

So I started the Teresa Kogut ‘Jingle Bells Star Ornament’ on this little scrap of 30ct black linen I found in my stash. It just fit.

Using a bright light, its magnifier, and my magnifying glasses I was able to complete it, too! I had to substitute three of the four DMC colours. Cody Hoover’s ‘Floss Color Tool’ was my substitution source.

On the way to the retreat I stopped in New Hamburg at Heart ‘N Home quilt shop and was able to get two DMC colours I needed. One of them was for the Mary Corbet ‘Christmas Wreath Ornament’ from last year’s stitchalong, which I also started. It’s on 46ct Oatmeal linen which is great for embroidery.

I also started the Kathy Barrick ‘Merry Christmas Wishes’ project I had purchased in Colorado last month. I bought some fabric for it at Stitch-It Central when I got to London, but Marlene had a better colour. It’s 40ct linen from Atomic Ranch Fabric ‘Weathered Stone’. 

I’m using the called-for WDW colours. The finished piece will be about 6 1/2” x 8 1/2”.  This will be a long-term project as it took me what seemed to be a long time to do these two little bits.

And I finally selected a colour for the ‘mortar’ on my Live on Little house: DMC 3072. 

It’s going to take a while to get it all filled in but I can plug away at it during social stitching.

Marlene made up some Advent Calendar boxes that I did not know about until I got there. Fortunately she had extras and I was able to purchase one.

I will be away a few days of December so I’ll get to open a whole bunch at once. We swore to not reveal any contents before the appropriate date. So I don’t stumble upon any spoilers online while I’m away, I think I might open the ones ahead of time for those days.

All in all, the retreat was a resounding success. Marlene really ‘hit it out of the park’ on this, the first stitching retreat she has organized. She’s already looking at dates for next spring. Hopefully it will fit with my schedule as I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Also, the drive home was surprisingly enjoyable. I had been dreading it off and on all weekend thinking that the traffic would be horrendous. But, taking a cross-country route to the 401, entering at the Drumbo exchange, being Sunday, and no major truck traffic or ongoing construction and the completed collector lanes before the 407, things went swimmingly. Also, having taken a ‘comfort stop’  at the Shell station by the Drumbo exchange on the way to London, I ‘rested’ there again on the way home.

The fall colours were the figurative icing on the cake.

It was a very enjoyable weekend partaking in an activity with a bunch of like-minded people. More than once it was remarked that we really ‘get’ each other. I am so grateful for things like this in my life. 

I just may have to take a ‘fall colour tour’ sometime this week through the rolling hills of Durham Region.

I remember studying this Bliss Carmen (Canadian poet) poem in school. It is one of my favourites: