Last Look Back at Quilt Camp

A week ago, I'd be waking up at the house of a grad school friend, and shortly I'd be heading up to the mountains for Quilt Camp at Lutheridge.  What a great retreat.  I made a lot of FB posts, and I'm going to paste them here, along with some pictures, so that I can find them again.  Facebook is not nearly as searchable/readable as this blog.  I will leave the posts in a different font.

Here is my post from the first night, just a week ago.  I was able to log onto my seminary class, as well as the small group before the class--hurrah!

Retreat month continues! I am safe at Lutheridge, one of the places on earth where I most love being, ready for retreat #2: Quilt Camp! And thanks to the joy of modern technology, I can do my seminary classes each night. Seminary classes and Quilt Camp--perhaps I have died and gone to Heaven?

Thursday afternoon, I wrote this post:

Twenty-four hours after the start of Quilt Camp, I've gotten panels sewed together, and I'm beginning to think I might be able to get the whole top sewn together, and perhaps I might even be able to assemble it. I have fabric for the back with me, and plenty of near-by stores would sell me the batting.

I was not able to get the whole top sewn together, but I did assemble the back, and I did get to a store on Saturday that would sell me batting.

We ate so well:

I have consumed a week's worth of calories at breakfast:grits AND oatmeal! and bacon! and eggs! fresh fruit (cantaloupe and pineapple)! I didn't eat the scones, bagels, or other breads, and I didn't eat the Greek yogurt and granola.

Now, back to constructing the quilt top. If any sort of apocalypse falls on our heads today, I won't starve any time soon, due to all the snacks we brought and how much I have stored in my fat cells. And I've got plenty of fabric.

If an apocalypse falls on our heads, know that I'm happy: sewing fabric into quilts and catching up on seminary reading with the old-fashioned books I brought with me in case the internet was down.

I had my computer at my sewing station.  I was able to write a bit, sew a bit, on and on through the day.  It was wonderful.

At Quilt Camp, I leave my aging laptop in the Faith Center where the sewing tables are set up. The building is completely empty when we go for meals, and I did wonder if my computer was safe. Then I laughed at myself. Every woman in this room has a sewing machine that is more valuable than my computer--and many of those sewing machines may contain just as much in the way of electronics as my computer. These are not your grandmothers' Singer sewing machines. Alas.

I stayed up much later than usual each night.  On Thursday night, I made this post:

If it's 9:30 at night, and I'm ironing the fabric for the back of my quilt, am I really Kristin anymore? (You may or may not know that I usually go to bed about the time that toddlers do and that I almost never iron).

And then on Friday, started looking out for snow.  And then, we finally got some snow!  On Saturday, I walked outside in the morning, feeling sad that I had missed the snow.

But it snowed off and on throughout the day.

More snow showers at Lutheridge at 4:30 on Saturday afternoon--the best kind of snow, the kind that drifts outside of the window but doesn't accumulate on the ground, while I'm inside, finishing the last panel for my quilt top.

And by Saturday night, it was clear that I was not going to get my quilt assembled--but that was O.K.

I thought I might get enough panels done before Quilt Camp was over to put the quilt top together, but it's clear that I will not. On the bright side, I don't need to stay up all night sewing all the panels in the top together. And I have more time for design decisions.

Here's one last picture of the whole group--what a great group and what a great time!