Quilting retreat and aftermath

Wow! That was some quilting retreat! 63 ladies, all bitten by the quilt bug, together for four days in a StayOkay hostel in Elst, situated in a lovely wooded area here in the Netherlands. The weather was not great, it rained most of Saturday, but hey! We were all cozy in our huge quilting studio.

The organizing team, Ingrid, Ariane and Marjolein, had put together a wonderful program. There were lectures, workshops, show and tell, and meals of course, yet enough time was left for everyone to spend patching, quilting, visiting nearby quilt shops, go for a nice walk in the woods and of course chat with each other. What a wonderful time I've had. This was my 6th time in Elst and I must say, it gets better every time. By now, it feels like coming home. Thank you ladies and I hope to see you again next year!

All participants received lots of gifts, some from the in house quiltshop (thank you Angela!), some from the organizing team and some we made for each other. This is a gift I received from Caroline:

It's a notebook with a kitty cover she made, isn't it cute? The little charm pack is exactly the right size for my Ocean Waves quilt (which right now is just a bin containing 600 half square triangles). There was also a sweet little button in the package. Thank you Caroline!

On Friday, Hilde gave a lecture on decluttering the house and quilting studio. Hilde is a professional organizer who has her own company, Yourganize. Hilde had lots of useful tips and suggestions, most are common sense but still very useful to hear, such as: think before you buy (do I really need this?), if you buy a pair of shoes: throw one (or two) pairs away.
And, very important: decide what you want to use a space for. If it's your bedroom, sewing stuff does not belong there! Umm, I have a very small apartment and a lot of quilting materials. I may not be ready to adopt that rule just yet. Or maybe I'll make the whole apartment a designated quilting area - problem solved! LOL!

Hildes lecture certainly has got me thinking again about decluttering my house. Probably Surely something I should do more often. I think the spring weather is also to blame ;-)

On Saturday, Arnout Cosman showed many of his quilts. Arnout is a true quilt artist. I didn't take pictures because the light was so bad, but there's a quilt gallery on his website. Take a moment to visit there, I'm sure you won't regret it! While Arnout was talking about his quilts, the room with over 60 quilters was completely silent. Truly an accomplishment, just like his gorgeous quilts.

(Hi Shirley, I hope you don't mind I 'borrowed' one of your pictures...)

Arnout designs his own quilts using the design software he created. This program, QuiltAssistant, is available as a free download on his website. It is different from ElectricQuilt6 (which I often use). It assists in making quilt designs based on photographs. Arnout also demonstrated how he uses QuiltAssistant to design quilts. It was fascinating and I will definitely give it a go soon.

When I came home on Sunday afternoon, it was wonderful to just be quiet and unpack my many bags. I wanted to go to bed early but had to wait up for the plumber to come and unclog the kitchen drain. The upstairs neighbor's dishwater welled up in my sink and I was very lucky not to have come home to a flooded kitchen.

Yesterday I had another day off to recuperate from the busy weekend. It was so good to sleep in, potter around the house with the balcony door open and sew a little more. The first part of the zig zag border for the Antique Quilt is done, pressed and now hanging on my design wall. Pictures will follow soon!