This year, an opportunity arised to join a weekend away at a sewing retreat a couple of hours from home, and I decided to join. Lisa from the Modern Quilt Club was the organiser and I had a lot of fun in a very relaxed and welcoming environment!

I had never been to a quilting retreat before, so the idea of packing my sewing machine and a bunch of fabrics and notions to go and sew for an entire weekend away from my sewing room and supplies felt dauting. However, I needed a break from work and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to disconnect doing something completely different from anything before, so I decided to join the retreat.

Once I had committed to go, the next thing was to prepare a project or two to take with me, I have been learning how to do sashiko recently, so I wasn't sure whether to go all hand sewing or a mix of hand sewing and machine sewing. I had no shortage of half done projects, so I took my Sypher with me, took some time to gather all the bits and bobs. Then I also cut another small quilt kit that I had sitting on the shelf for years and off I went (this quilt came back as undone as it went, but at least now it is cut and ready for me to get started whenever I desire).

The sewing room was buzzing with activity at all times. Even late at night or early morning, there was always someone doing something, or chatting about some project:

On Saturday I got cracking with my Sypher project and started to put together all the missing bits. The quilt came together quite fast for my normal speed. Because everyone was chipping away at things, at no point did I get distracted or felt I didn't fancy continuing, the energy of the room was really pulling me to finish things. In the evening, before dinner, we played Aurifil Bingo! I didn't win but the tension in the room was really interesting:

Late at night on Saturday I finally finished my Sypher quilt. I had started it January 2023. This was a great moment:

At retreat, we all celebrated each other's finishes, so it was a weekend full of finishes. Big and small projects were finished! On Sunday before getting going, we took a group foto outside the sewing room, this is the group:

My main take aways are new friends and a lot of ideas for things to do/attempt, in all honesty, bags had been always something I felt was difficult and I came back inspired to try a few patterns that seemed achievable (having seen the items finished in the sewing room helped a lot). The ladies sitting next to me were really encouraging and I learnt a lot from them. I also got to talk to others that were sitting further away but doing really cool projects as well. It has been an incredibly enriching experience for me as a maker and quilter. We had some workshop during the weekend and some ladies did impromptu sharing of some techniques they had perfected along the way, to say I learnt a lot is an understatement.