MARY LOU RETREAT another Great Success! Wish you could see the tiaras closer-stay tuned for more photos

Above are the eleven ladies and myself who came long distances to do story quilts and get out of their boxes. Great fun and it was lovely for me to see some people stretch so much that they won't ever go back into their boxes or use their old fabrics or color palettes. One lady is going home and packaging some of her fabrics in a lovely packets to sell to guild members so she can buy more color! Yippee.

People who take my retreats are kind people too. Below is Sara from the Seattle area where she will take the new cat called "Stitch" home to live. That cat got more attention than Ricky Timms does! Pretty fun. There was a huge yoga group upstairs and they carried around the stray kitty but no one wanted it. It stuck around the JACC for two days meowing. The guy who manages the JACC part time came downstairs and asked Linda from Minnesota if she wanted a nice cat. She laughed and said "we are from Texas, Minnesota, Florida and everywhere else and no one lives here"-then everyone looked at me and both myself and my husband (him VERY are allergic to cats. So after about ten minutes Sara came up and announced she was going to Walmart to get a carrier, food and a cat box. Everyone clapped and the cat was then the "Offical" mascot. Sara made the cat a bandana of Tiara fabric I had and we all laughed....very fun.

We have a good Barbque place here in Spokane. I bought a 22 pound turkey and had it smoked while Nancy made fresh green beans with pecans and the other summer fixings to go along with it. The next day we had a cobb salad with the turkey also. Very fun.

Fairy gifts are a big part of my retreats and that is fun. This year someone brought buttons for everyone, Charlotte and Laura brought this amazing bumper sticker that will be my new saying from now on, I provided real "metal) tiaras this time, socks, dish towels, cute napkins, we had someone give fabric packs, darling book marks, lip cream, suckers and I can't remember what else. I did give out the bags with my girl logo that I will offer as soon as the website it up. That was fun too. Two of the ladies went to Home Depot to order design boards and they wore their large beautiful tiaras....they got great service and we all enjoyed their story!


Dishing up a meal for a nice break in thinking, designing and planning along with sewing of coarse. The meals were a lovely destraction and relief and we ate outside on a cool patio with teak chairs. Alot of laughter and enjoyment of friends and nice food.

Below are cookie made fresh by our chef Nancy Nelson...they were delicious in every way.

lovely dinner prepared by Nancy Nelson who was the cook with the mostest....we put her over the edge I think as she made fresh cookies and brownies each day along with many other delicious treats. The meals were wholesome and delicious.

Just wanted to mention how great plaids work with polka dots! Very fun. By the way, if you are taking my plaid class at John C.Campbell please bring three yards background instead of a yard and a half-piecing takes alot of background but is well worth it!

By the way Lorriane and Linda, what were YOUR secrets? I want to talk about this and we guessed alot of everyone else's secrets as Lorraines....please write and share so I can talk about it here.