A COVID Quilt Retreat

 When someone hears "Quilt Retreat," they may think of a very old-fashioned group of people, usually women, sitting around a frame, working as a team on a single quilt.  While that can still happen, and I've even participated in a marathon version of that as a fundraiser for Breast Cancer Support, my experience with the modern version of a Quilt Retreat is typically a location that is away from home, and not usually the traditional place a quilting guild or other quilting group will meet, but a special location, where people gather to work on projects, share inspiration, have a lot of fun, and strengthen the fellowship that is part of the quilting community.

The guild I belong to typically does a weekend retreat, where we go to a hall we've rented, with meals prepared for us - simple fare, but filling, and when you don't have to cook it or clean it up, it tastes even more delicious!  We each bring projects of our own to work on and we share tips and fun together.  You may arrive as a relative stranger, but you leave feeling you've just gained a whole group of friends.

This past weekend, I helped organize our guild retreat, but with COVID-19, we made it a virtual retreat.  Several people were hesitant to join in, but we made the most of it and ended up having a wonderful time.  We're finding small blessings in a global pandemic.  We normally have to restrict our retreats to 24 people, given the size of the hall we have access to.  With Zoom, we were able to have over 30 people join in.   We used the break-out room function of Zoom to allow small groups to chat and get to know each other, while we had mini-demos and workshops that people could join in on.  Throw in a quick game, some door prizes, and a fun show and tell, and you had the closest thing to a retreat as we could ask for.

What small blessings do you find in these times of COVID?  This is in no way to minimize the hardship and suffering many have endured, but to focus on the silver lining for a moment, instead of the ominous black cloud.  I hope you find a silver lining too.

UFO Focus for February

 I'm leveraging the Elm Street Quilts UFO monthly challenge to help me finish more quilts than I start in 2021.  I completed the ruler quilt last month, so this month I will be focusing on completing the quilt I call "Reconciliation through Healing Waters".  It is a guild mystery quilt that I pieced, sandwiched, but have to quilt and bind it to complete it.

I actually had no intentions of doing this mystery, as I have many, many UFO's that I should be focused on first.   Then, at a guild retreat, we went to visit the local quilt shop and I spotted this fabric.  The yellow fabric is a line called "Healing Waters" and was designed by a Canadian Indigenous artist by the name of Mark Anthony Jacobson, who resides in British Columbia.  Here is another fabric in this collection that will give you a better appreciation of this amazing fabric collection:

If you want to see the full fabric collection, please feel free to check this link out:  Northcott - Healing Waters

Looking forward to finishing this quilt as it is the first lap size quilt I've made for myself!  Everything beforehand has been gifted to others.