Dani... Black Belt Stitching Wizard

Retreat Recap... only 3 days late

This time of year is always my favorite, why? Because its time for the annual TWBB Eastern Ontario Retreat! Each year our host Ann opens her home, her shop and her RV to us! This retreat started well before Ann opened her shop Knowledge and Needles. The retreat is free(except for potluck contribution), and there is never any pressure to buy anything from Ann, but as Beth likes to put it we're often "polite".

This year a number of people had to drop out, which was disappointing Beth, Linda and Vicki (was to be her first time) all couldn't make it for various reasons... you were all missed! I know Beth was quite keen to go because she's finished 4 projects this year! Way to go Beth!!!!

I think on and off throughout the day we ranged from 15-20 people in various areas of the house stitching, talking, eating, and eating. We had a wonderful age range this year as well, myself youngest at 28 and the oldest, Beatrice's Mom at 88. Beatirce's Mom was an inspiration! To be 88 and still stitching! She was working on a beautiful Stonycreek piece with birds and a bridfeeder. I hope when I'm 88 I'll still be stitching away, I can't imagine my life without it.

It was nice to catch up with everyone who are regulars at the retreat and to meet the new faces. I always look forward to meeting up with Marj B, we get along so well. We also e-mail regularly and she's been great, keeping in touch with me leading up to and after my surgery.

I have to say one of my favorite parts of the whole weekend is "show and tell" we sit around the room and pull out all the projects we've finished or made significant progress on over the last year. It often leads to enabling! The star of the show this year had to be Beatrice's Mother of course!

This year the afternoon was more entertaining as it had been in past years. Ann had come up with an outrageous questionnaire where everyone one a prize! The prizes were all beautifully wrapped and stitching related. I won a couple of packs of beads in an Altoid tin. I won for having the most posts on the TWBB which I have to say is vergeing on 14,500 I think. The most distance travelled was by Carmen who came to Brighton from London via Petawawa! What a laugh!

As we hit the later hours of the evening our numbers started to dwindle. Staying overnight were about 9 of us, I had the privlidge of staying in Ann's luxurious RV! Sunday morning came with a nice sunny day. We sat around the kitchen table having breakfast, coffee, and putting in the occasional stitch on our projects. By 1 PM we all started to pack up our stitching and our newly purchased stash and headed for home...

Until next year...