With Love, From Cattail Retreat

February 10, 2019February 10, 2019Leave a comment

Our Cattail weekend retreat has ended. The projects worked on will be around for a good, long time. Quilt tops sewn, sun dress (and accessories planned) for a little granddaughter was stitched, photos scrapbooked (yes, actual paper copies, not digital ones!) and a new hobby was learned, paper piecing fabric to make mini works of art.

The food started with this…coconut mango cherry dream with fresh whipped topping…

We did have dinner with lentil soup first…salmon spread, homemade deli rye buns, beets from Mom and Dad’s garden, Carr Valley cheeses, sprouts and capers for greens. Yum!

Saturday lunch was pheasant wild rice soup, taco dip and sandwiches with tiramisu. Saturday dinner was chicken enchiladas, refried beans, rice and chocolate pudding layer cake which was frozen so it was like an ice cream treat. Sunday is leftover day plus bonus chocolate cake. Plus samples of Nessalla hibiscus cardamom ginger kombucha and home brew peach kombucha and moscato. All very delicious!

Pillow gifts…fabric bowls with truffles from Dawn, hearts themed potholder (too nice to use this way, it will be a table center piece for a bit), pillow box from me compliments of Paper Pumpkin.

My new experience for the weekend was Dawn teaching me how to paper piece quilt blocks. The teapot took about 6 hours but took breaks and had dinner in that time too. The teacup (not pictured) took about 90 minutes the next day including a sewing machine tune up with Pauline’s help.

Dawn worked on her dresden pattern…

The scrapbooking girls..Jeanette, me and Tiffany. Tiffany zoomed home first thing this morning due to the snowy weather. She got home in good time but Jeanette was slowed by the weather.

We had a fun and productive weekend making memories in a country setting. Looking forward to next time when we just have the August heat to contend with!

Click here for a tour of the retreat house starting in the craft room. I filmed the video in Facebook so add a comment if you are able to view it. This is the first time I tried sharing a Facebook Live video to my blog.

Super Awesome Weekend Getawayer Shirley

Weekend Crafting Retreat, Are You In?

February 3, 2019February 3, 20192 Comments

We are officially 5 sleeps away from 3 days and 2 nights of full time crafting! That’s right, spread your craft out on your own table for the entire weekend. Enjoy the scenic pond view out the craft room window. Help prepare one meal during the weekend.

Sounds like a fun and productive time? Then join us! We have 3 spots open for the retreat that starts on Friday, February 8th, 10am and ends on Sunday, February 10th, 3pm. The location is at Cattail Retreat in Poynette.

This is a photo of part of the retreat group from last October and part of the craft room space. The place sleeps 8 so there are 8 center tables with more workspace and tables along the sides of the room.

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Please contact me for more information and to RSVP for this weekend’s retreat. If you can’t make this one, look for the August and and October dates to be posted soon.

Have a nice day that includes some crafty time!

Super Awesome Stamper Shirley

Weekend Getaway at Cattail Retreat

October 24, 2018October 24, 20186 Comments

We had a fabulous time during our weekend getaway at Cattail Retreat. We split the room with half working on paper crafts and half working on quilting and gifts. Creativity was flowing in all directions!

First up was piling kits for upcoming Christmas card making sessions. I took advantage of the free table space until other guests arrived. That’s about 100 kits pictured. I did another 100 after these were stuffed in their envelopes.

The design for these kits uses retired designer series paper and ribbon…gingerbread punch is in our annual catalog!

Since Halloween is next week, I designed a spooky pillow gift. Dawn sewed a fun pouch to share as a pillow gift too. Thanks Dawn!

After my kit piling was done, I worked on reducing my whisper white paper scrap pile by punching bows from the Candy Cane builder punch. I used all my scraps and created about 150 bows. I stamped the hohoho words using real red ink from the coordinating Candy Cane Season stamp set. They are attached to glue dots strips for easy assembly.

We had lots of great food including taco dip, chili, southwest black bean soup and chicken chili in tomato sauce. Treats were an apple pie from #NorskeNook, gluten free brownies from #chocolatecoveredkatie and mango turmeric #Nessallakombucha. All delicious!

I set aside my paper crafts to hook a few loops on my pear centerpiece. The photo on the left is progress from the August retreat, the first 2 pears hooked. The photo on the right is progress made this weekend. I completed 3 pears! #patience and #goals learned while rug hooking for sure! It takes me a couple of hours to hook 1 pear.

Group photo right before packing up with some of the quilts worked on while at retreat in the background. We missed a few people that departed early.

The original retreaters…Tiffany on left, me in the center and Jeanette on the right. They are scrapbooking super stars! They design layouts and print photos prior to the weekend. During retreat, they match photos with layouts. They stay on task and usually meet their goal and matching all the photos with layouts. Pretty impressive since they have littles and take advantage of life experiences so have lots of memories to keep!

Thanks for a great weekend! Catch you next time at Cattail Retreat!

Super Awesome Weekend Getawayer Shirley

P.S. Future retreats are February 8-10, 2019, August 9-11, 2019 and October 18-20, 2019. Message me if you are interested in attending these dates. Thanks!

Craft the Night Away or aka Your Invitation to Weekend Retreat

August 13, 2018August 13, 2018Leave a comment

My mind will be in serious packing planning mode this week. My weekend craft retreat is next weekend, August 24-26th in Poynette! It takes 30 minutes from door to door for me. An easy drive to organize my thoughts for which project I craft with first.

Would you like to attend? You are welcome to attend on your own or bring your friends. You get your own large table to spread out on for the entire weekend. Unloading is easy directly from the driveway into the ground level craft space which overlooks the pond.

The house sleeps 8 across 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. We coordinate noon and evening meals so you should only be providing and cleaning up 1 meal per weekend. Breakfast is on your own so you can sleep in if you want to.

We retreat at Cattail Retreat in Poynette. Click here for a link to their website.

Click the Contact button above to contact me for full details and to RSVP. Please do so today so you can start planning your packing strategy soon!

Super Awesome Stamper Shirley

The pond overlooking the craft space…

Inside the craft space and happy crafters!

Retreat Projects Completed!

March 2, 2018March 2, 2018Leave a comment

We were busy crafters at our weekend retreat. Here are some photos to show what we created over our 3 days of spreading out on our own tables.

I worked on stamping and assembling the coffee cards for an upcoming card exchange. The happiness card was sent to a friend that could not make the retreat.

Dawn sewed the border around this hand stitched alphabet block. She said she used lots of red scraps. She does not know the person that created the blocks so if you recognize the artist, please add a comment.

Katrina made a stack of microwavable bowls and was working on another stack. The ribbon blanket is for baby to stimulate visual and touch senses.

We took a break for the make-n-takes, a gable box and birthday card (not shown).

There is usually a little bit of fabric left after a project is finished. Dawn creates a square to remind her of the project since most are given away as gifts. She created these squares over the weekend. She eventually hopes to sew these together to make a larger project. Maybe we will see her do this at the next retreat.

Dawn’s square project reminded me that I do something similar with designer series paper. I keep a few sheets of favorite patterns to create a scrapbook layout so I can continue to enjoy the paper long after it has been used in other projects. I have several shelves of “saved” paper waiting to be scrapbooked. Someday I’ll get to creating with the stash. It may be used to finally get the scrapbook started that is All About Me. For now, it is enough I have a saved stash that will be ready when I am.

Would you like to join us on our next retreat? Paper crafters, quilters and rug hookers are welcome to attend and make progress along with us! Our next retreat is August 24-26 and October 19-21, 2018. Contact me for more information and reserve your spot at retreat!

Super Awesome Retreater Shirley at #cattailretreat