Fancy Works Retreat

Hey Blog Buddies,

Did you know that there's a needlework store in Bloomington, Indiana?  I didn't until a couple of months ago. This past weekend, my friend Joyce and I were two of the attendees at their first annual retreat.

Yes, the name of the store is Fancy Works,

owned by a sweet lady named Dianna.

The location of the retreat was lovely:

The Canyon Inn at

McCormick's Creek State Park in Spencer.

The inn was originally a sanitarium!

The retreat ran from Thursday afternoon

through Sunday morning,

and for me the weekend just flew by.

There were lots of goodies lining the walls

in the stitching room to tempt us.

Vonna, The Twisted Stitcher,

conducted four finishing classes:

two on flatfolds and two on ornaments.

She has a wonderful blog

with all sorts of helpful information

for finishing needlework;

if you're not familiar with it, click here.

This is one of the finished flatfolds.

And this is the finished ornament.

Everyone who took a class

left with a finished item.

I chose not to take either of the classes

because Averyclaire! does all of my small finishes,

and I'd rather be stitching than finishing.

On Friday morning, Stacy Nash

made a surprise appearance at the retreat.

Dianna is on the left, Stacy on the right.

It's fun to meet designers that you've

been following.

The retreat organizers thought up

all sort of games for us to play so that we 

could be entertained and win prizes at the same time.

The scavenger hunt was particularly

crazy and diabolical (but fun).

If you didn't win any of the games, not to worry.

There was a steady stream

of free stash given to each attendee

starting before the retreat even began

(a small chart was included with the retreat schedule

and directions that were mailed out),

through and including Sunday morning.

It's hard to show all of the freebies--

the table isn't that big.

And did I mention that a $75 gift certificate

to the Fancy Works store was included?

This is how I used it to further enhance my stash.

There was a wonderful masseuse available on
both Friday and Saturday.
Joyce threatened to take a photo of me
getting a massage,
but fortunately that didn't happen.

Most of us participated in a gift exchange, too.

I forgot to take a photo of what I gave away,

but here is what I received.

Yes, it's an Easter-themed basket

with jelly beans, a floss-filled egg,

four Easter/spring charts and some white linen.

Fabulous!

I was actually thinking of buying an Easter chart,
and now I have several.
I've already kitted one up;
over half of the threads came from that egg!
You'll see it here later this month.

Old Friends Meet New Friends

The seating was six to a table and,
let's be honest here,
sometimes you find yourself seated next to a pill.
But I'm happy to report that
everyone at our table was very congenial.

From the left: Carol, Donna, Joyce, me, Claire and Liz.
It was a bonus to meet four new friends.

As for what I stitched, I took
only three projects to work on:
Needle Delights Originals' Spring Logs, 
Barbara Ana's Funky Bird and
Lizzie-Kate's A Bit of June (below).

I started this at the retreat,
and finished it after I came home.
I did make progress on the other two,
but they are not quite "blog ready" yet,
and this post is way too long already.

Dianna announced that they are having
another retreat next year,
and there was general merriment
when the attendees heard that bit of news.

A big Thank You goes out to Dianna, Sandi,
and the many Elves who worked so hard
and made this retreat so much fun for all of us.

That is it for now.
Hope your April is getting off to a good start.
Thanks, as always, for visiting.