First Guild Retreat

The first guild retreat was an amazing weekend of sewing, chatting, building friendships, and fun. Fifteen guild members retreated together to the Siena Center in Racine Wisconsin which was such a lovely place; everyone was so friendly and welcoming. We're determined to go back soon.

We took short breaks to learn new skills from each other with ten minute tips.
Ebony's demonstrating her phenomenal method of machine binding in the picture above.

We all got a lot done over the sewing weekend, the pictures below showcase some of the projects that we worked on.

Karen showing off her gorgeous applique and thread painting projects.

Here's a piece of Yolande's project with pieced cornerstones. She has a LOT of tiny yoyos that she'll be attaching to the yellow squares of this quilt. Can't wait to see it all put together!

Here's Mary, our founding President, displaying a beautiful
blue baby quilt she pieced this weekend.


Holly has a bunch of beautiful fabrics pieced in to flying geese blocks. She also made the

gorgeous scarf she's wearing in this photo (although not at the retreat).

Eileen is working on a striped quilt with really gorgeous, rich colors.
She also made these adorable spaceship / robot pillowcases for her two boys. Rock Star Mom!

Donna, the guild's new Vice President displays some gorgeous, funky pieced blocks from scraps of reds in her stash. She also started on her first Drunkard's path after a little alone time with Mr. T.!



Here's Ebony, probably our most productive participant, displaying the only project that's approved for public viewing, a cathedral windows project with some gorgeous turquoise stitching along the seams. She also worked on a project she's hoping to submit to a magazine and another for a children's book. Go Ebony!



Michele worked on mirroring techniques with these blocks. She also completed a beautiful purple and green quilt - I believe it was a drunkard's path.



Emily created this gorgeous wonky star baby quilt in soft, sweet colors. She also gave a great tutorial on teeny, tiny wonky stars that finish at just one inch.



Here's Debbi with a lovely fiber art project she completed over the weekend.


Sue's project of fun, unpredictable strip piecing turned out simply stunning.


Beth, the new guild president, is working on a lovely king size quilt using a ten inch Moda layer cake. A lot of the blocks came together this weekend, and we laid it all out to get an idea of how many are left. This will have brown stripes running vertically between the blocks and white stripes running horizontally. Gorgeous!

Emily made two beautiful cross banners for her church over the weekend. She also finished up a really fun quilt of her own design that reminds me a bit of lightning bolts.

Freida worked most of the weekend on a variety of cathedral windows
projects using all kinds of great fabrics.

I don't know about everyone else, but I can't wait for the next retreat at the Siena Center. I had so much fun sewing and getting projects moving along, but I had even more fun chatting and getting to know everyone better. What an amazing group of crafters!