Whew! What a weekend! I don’t know where to start except at the beginning, so here goes.
First of all, I’d been fighting a wicked sinus cold all week, and it was a losing battle, I tell you what. But I wasn’t about to miss my stitching retreat, so . . . We left Cobourg at 9 a.m., and yes, I did warn my passenger about my cold and offer to wear a mask, but she was fine with it. And actually, the worst of my cold was Friday – I was just a little sniffly the rest of the weekend.
The fact that we didn’t reach the Nottawasaga Resort until 1 p.m. was due more to us making a pitstop at a humungous outlet mall than traffic. So here’s what the resort looks like (I took this picture off their website):
See how the building fans out in those nice long arms? Yeah. My room was at the end of one of those long arms, and they only had elevators in the center portion. My room was just to the right of that light at the end of the tunnel, so I tried not to have to go back there very often. 😊
The room we were give to stitch in was on the bottom floor, and we had to go through a bit of a maze to get there, but it was a great room, brightly lit with natural light and a great view that wasn’t too distracting:
The four of us were guests of the Toronto Guild – well, two of us were guests, one of us was a member of their guild as well, and one of us was a soon to be member. Here’s a shot of us all hard at work.
Conversation rose and fell, and laughter was abundant. These ladies were every bit as warm, welcoming and friendly as our own group, and we felt right at home as soon as we got there. I swear, it has to be a stitching thing.
We weren’t alone down there either. The conference room beside us had a scrapbooking group who had an impressive amount of paper and cutters and stickers and everything you could think of to do with scrapbooking spread around the perimeter of their room.
And there was a double wide room for a quilt group called the Serial Rippers. Is that not the coolest name ever? Their room was a little frightening. It was filled with cutting boards and steamers and irons and some of the fanciest sewing machines I’ve ever seen. I had a serious case of sewing machine envy.
That picture is just the small half of the room, the other side is twice as big and filled to the brim with quilters. Unfortunately, my camera phone doesn’t always work that well so a lot of my pictures didn’t turn out.
Everyone there was super friendly. It must be something to do with the creative spirit. But I gotta tell you, I don’t get that sense of camaraderie at my writing retreats.
Also unlike my writing retreats, meals were included. And man, what meals they were! Breakfast was a buffet, and for lunch and dinner we were given three different choices. This is the restaurant where we took our meals. On the other side of the double fireplace were more tables, with a terrific view of the golf course.
On Saturday and Sunday there was an annual Sugar Plum Fair, a craft show with over a hundred vendors. This was held in the Trade Center attached to the resort, and we could walk over via a tunnel that connected the hotel to the sports complex. Yes, I spent way too much there, but a lot of it was on Christmas presents.
I did surprisingly well with my social anxiety over the weekend. Breakfast was between 7:30 and 8:30, after which we retired to the stitching room. We’d break for lunch, and then back to stitching until dinner a 5 or 6. That’s a lot of time together.
But like I said, it was a different energy than I get at a writing retreat. Being around these ladies was energizing. And we weren’t glued to our needlework by any means. We could take a walk, or wander around to see what the other groups were doing, or go up to our room for a nap. The fact that few of us did just tells you what a friendly bunch we were.
The work that was done in this room was mind-boggling. There was needlepoint, cross-stitch, crochet, embroidery, blackwork, cut work, new projects, old projects, practical projects, decorative projects, and if you finished something, you got to ring a bell to announce it.
Here’s a sampling of some of the work the four of us from Cobourg did. The first is by the insanely talented Heather, who must have eyes like a hawk because she’s always working on something intricate with single strands of silk thread. This one is part of a small-size replica of 17th century gentleman's night cap (an etui when finished), from Thistle Threads designs.
Next we have a tablecloth the indomitable Immy is working on. It’s going to be gorgeous when it’s done, don’t you think?
Then we have this cute piece by Emily, who’s deserting us to join the Toronto Guild. And they’d better take good care of her or we’re stealing her back! Incidentally, she was the only one who got to ring the bell.
And this is the zentangle sampler I’ve been working away at. I can only work on it a bit at the time because the material I picked is NOT good for stitching, but it was nice to make some progress.
Honestly, this is the tip of the iceberg as far as the talent in that room went. And like I said, the camera in my phone sometimes didn’t work properly, so many of my pictures didn’t turn out all that good. Plus, I didn't get names to go with the pictures of the other work I captured, so I can't give proper credit to them.
I’m about 3,000 words behind in my NaNo challenge, but I can’t bring myself to care. LOL I’ve been further behind than that before and caught up, so I’m not too worried. Besides, it was totally worth it. I had an amazing weekend and I’m sorry it had to end.
I’d like to thank the Toronto Guild of Stitchery for inviting us to join them, and I promise if you let me come back next year I’ll bring my good camera, and a notebook to take down names so I can give credit where credit is due. 😊
No comments:
Post a Comment