Quilt Retreat May 2016: The Tools & The Stories

In my 4th and final post in the series of posts on the 4-day quilt retreat I attended at Sew N Go Quilt Retreats in Vancouver, WA, I want to share some of the new tools I got while at the retreat and a couple of the stories.

Naturally –  “what happens in quilt retreat, stays in quilt retreat” – but I think my Quilt Sisters would be okay if I publicly shared a couple stories (maybe, ha!).

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THE TOOLS

During quilt retreat I picked up a Martelli Round-a-Bout 17″ rotating cutting mat. Another quilter friend has one and I saw how wonderful it worked!

In addition to the Martelli spinning cutting mat, I got a set of Bloc Loc Flying Geese rulers. I saw these demonstrated and one of my quilting sister had access to a wholesale set (they are usually fairly “spendy”if you buy them individually. If you would like to read more about Bloc Loc Rulers, check out their website: Flying Geese Square Up Rulers.

A very neat device I picked up during quilt retreat was the Electric Seam Ripper. Another quilter demonstrated this device and makes seam ripper a breeze (not that I would ever need any seam ripping, I never make sewing mistakes, ha!). A couple other quilt retreat attendees also purchased them and there was no stealth seam ripping at the retreat: we could hear the whir of the battery powered seam ripper motor whenever seam ripping was occurring!

I thought a sewing light, was a sewing light, until a quilting friend introduced me to the Slimline Table Lamp. It provides full spectrum light for a daylight effect. I picked one up the day of the retreat and used it for the entire retreat. It is a pretty darn awesome light to have over your sewing machine! It also doubles as an imaginary device (see THE STORIES).

 

THE STORIES

“I’ve Had the Time of My Life”

When quilters are quilting late into the evening, and “special beverages” have been involved throughout the evening, and the quilters are long-time friends, occasionally very silly things can happen.

Such a very silly thing happened on the Saturday night of the quilting retreat.

Another quilter, who had also purchased a Slimline Table Lamp for the retreat and I thought these lamps looked like microphones. We thought it would be fun to put on a “floor show” for the other quilters and the quilt retreat host.

My floor show partner located the main song from the movie Dirty Dancing – “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” and put it on her smart phone speaker. We stood up at our tables and began singing into our imaginary microphones, at the top of our lungs, a poorly ad libbed (but fairly hysterical) version of the song “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life”.

We even threw in a little dance during the instrumental interlude to the song. We nearly kept “straight faces” during our performance…nearly.

Our silliness was rewarded with laughter and applause. (Perhaps the other retreat attendees and hosts were just being polite and hoped we get “our meds adjusted” as soon as possible!).

Yes, to answer your question, photos were taken. They will not be shared. I do not even want to see them (smile).

“Adventures in Spanx”

Are you familiar with Spanx, the body shaping wear (shapewear) that squishes any “jiggling bits” into a smooth format (like a modern girdle)?

Well one of the quilters was preparing to attend an upcoming family wedding and wanted to find a special dress to wear. She told us the story of her first time putting on Spanx and proceeded to pantomime the whole experience.

She shared her story of going  to a department store, finding the perfect dress and while trying on the dress, the sales clerk suggesting she enhance the look of the dress by wearing a full Spanx bodysuit underneath to flatten any “jiggling bits”.

My dear Quilt Sister, then proceeded to pantomime and explain the whole experience of slowly putting on full body Spanx for the first time and how the Spanx moves the “jiggling bits” around to places you never imagined them moving on your body, especially on a middle-aged body (placing the jiggling bits in odd places at first as you slowly wriggle into the bodysuit).

It was like a brilliant stand-up comedy show performance. I have not laughed that hard in a long time and worried that my bladder control might fail me at any moment. The whole room was filled with laughter and at least one quilter had tears in her eyes from laughing so hard!

Well that is it for posts on this quilt retreat. I am looking forward to the next time I reunite with all my Quilting Sisters!