Visiting and the Pastime Pieces 2025 Fall Retreat

I hit the road on Wednesday morning - headed for Stitch-It Central in London. I wanted to pick up some threads still missing from kitting up a couple of projects and something Judy R wanted.

Afterwards, I checked into my hotel. The traffic on Wellington Rd when I drove to the city centre was horrible. There are several construction sites where there would be one lane of traffic each way on one side of the road then we'd all veer to the other side of the road. This is a main thoroughfare to get to the 401 from the city centre. I have never seen so much construction on one road at one time.

I picked up Judy L at her hotel and we drove back down Wellington Rd (this time in the dark @#$%&) to dine at Red Lobster. Back at her hotel afterwards, I gave her the Persian Tiles blanket and a little buddy we thought should be named BUSTer - since Judy's receiving treatment for breast cancer. 

After a nice visit, I headed back down Wellington Rd (!@#$%&) to my hotel for the night.

I slept in the next morning as I didn't have to check out 'til 11 and I only had a bit of shopping to do at Len's Mills before leaving the area. Shortly after shopping there I headed to Petrolia to meet Tessa for coffee and a catch-up visit. We have kept in touch on Facebook over the years but I hadn't seen her since before I left the Sarnia area in 1989. We have a lot of acquaintances in common and had lots of life events to get caught up on. 

After that, I drove to my niece's  (Rosa's) place in Oil Springs. Her husband, Darryl, was home - having just taken a deer on their acreage and was cleaning it in the shed. I chose not to take a look. My other niece, Ana, picked up Chinese food on the way over. We enjoyed a nice supper and visited until bedtime.

Friday morning I was up and out before 9 to meet up with retired ladies I taught with when I lived in Sarnia. They get together for breakfast the first Friday of the month. I often try to time my visits to family in the area so I can join 'The Breakfast Club' and have a nice visit.

After breakfast, I headed back to London to the retreat centre to unload the car and stake out a table in the stitching room. Barb's train was arriving before 2pm so I headed downtown to retrieve her from the VIA station and bring her to the retreat. Before leaving for the train station I had to stop in at Dollarama and pick up a pair of reading glasses for stitching. I had cleverly left my stitching bag at home with them, my nametag, and rechargeable lamp. I also dropped into Michaels to pick up a lamp to get me through the retreat.

With Barb safely picked up, we headed back to the retreat centre and started in on stitching. Other folks we knew were Yvonne, Chris, and Blaire. Most of the other participants were folks who had also attended last year. There were 32 stitchers in all including the organizer, Marlene.

Our stitching room had great lighting. The arrow indicates where Barb and I sat. The problem with this room is all the surfaces are hard - nothing with sound absorption like drapes, carpeting, acoustic tiles so it is very LOUD when we're all talking enthusiastically.

Marlene set up a little popup up shop just outside the stitching room door. There were lots of lovely models to admire,

and lots of bins crammed with patterns for us to peruse.

I sent these photos to Jen1. She zoomed in on the models and asked me to pick up the pattern for one she coveted. Other than that, I didn't purchase anything for myself. There were lots of temptations but my existing pattern stash is so vast I really didn't want to add to the pile.

Over the 2 1/2 days I mainly worked on 5 projects:

I finished one of the big leaves on Newcastle Bouquet. I really must haul this out on a regular basis and get it finished up. I've been working on it for over 5 years.

I got most of the Buckeye Scarlet (red) filled in on 'Smitten'. There's a lot of stitching in this so I doubt I'll get it done for this Christmas.

I finished the third and largest house from the Hello from Liz Mathews Jingle Ball pattern, "Snow Globes". I want to do one more motif to go in front of the houses in the snowglobe.

I got a good start on 'Ginger', the Stacy Nash Jingle Ball pattern. This 36ct Aztec Red fabric is easier to stitch on than the blue I'm using for Smitten. 

Following up on my last post, I did receive the chart from Annie Beez and got the project kitted up. It will also be stitched on the Aztec Red fabric. 

Another long-neglected project that got some of my attention was the second of the 'Spring Green Pears' from Annie Beez. I like doing alphabets so figured this would be fun to stitch while gabbing at my table.

The first pear was completed a while back.

One of the things in our swag bag was this small, mesh project bag with a 'Create' chart. We also received a ball of #8 Aurifil variegated perle cotton intended for this project but instead, I used 6 strands of random DMC floss in various rainbow colours. I completed the stitching on Friday night.

Our lodgings were pretty comfortable. I had taken my foam bed topper, duvet, and pillow from home so was very cozy in my room. Toilet and shower facilities were down the hall.

Show and share on Saturday night was very inspiring. I didn't take anything this year but must make a note to take some things to show off next year. 

It started snowing on Saturday night. Sunday morning there was a light blanket of snow on the ground with temps just around 0C and it continued to snow. I made the executive decision to leave for home early so we packed up the car after some last-minute stitching after breakfast and got on the road shortly after 11. Rather than drive all the way down to the 402 or 401, I took the cross country route (pink line) until meeting up with the 401 at Drumbo. The route is slower but was WAY less annoying with no traffic or road spray.

We stopped for lunch at the ON Route past Cambridge then made for the 407. The roads were very sloppy - lots of spray on the windshield but not really slippery. I got Barb to her place in Ajax before 3 and I got home shortly after 3.

I was pretty 'peopled out' so very glad to get home to peace and quiet. To decompress, I got caught up on my Arne and Carlos KAL. 

I had planned to take this project to the retreat but forgot it along with my stitching bag. D'oh!

I'm happy I got to visit with so many people before and during the retreat. I haven't been back to Lambton County for visits for quite a while so it was nice to touch base with everyone.

There's still snow on the ground. I'm hoping we'll get a good west wind and all the leaves on my lawn from the neighbour's birch tree and the big one on my boulevard blow away. My boulevard tree holds onto its leaves usually until December. At which point, on a sunny, dry day I run around with the mulching lawn mower and get them bagged up in yard waste bags. Hopefully the lawn mower will start since the last time I used it a year ago. But that's 'future Geri's' issue.