Submitted by: Wade Dale
On August 24, 20 quilters from all over the province of Manitoba came together at the United Church Bible Camp at Wellman Lake for a weekend quilt retreat. Some people brought their RV’s to stay in, some stayed in the cabins and some drove back and forth each day.
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Registration started at 2 pm and each quilter registered and received a goodie bag of quilt information and items donated by generous sponsor from the Swan Valley.
Everyone that came brought fat quarter (quarter-yard cut of fabric that measures 18″ x 22″ instead of the typical 9″ x 42″) to enter into a draws.
For each fat quarter that you put in you were able to put your name into the draw that many times. There were so many fat quarters that I split them into three draws. People also brought 5 inch squares to swap with others, to help built up their stash.
When each person sent in their registration forms they were sent back a 10 inch square of challenge fabric. Each person was to create a 12 11/2” square block, either in patchwork or applique. These were handed in and each received a number and their block was hung up to be voted on at a later date.
The first activity of the retreat was a welcoming banquet. Julie Nahnybida was our chef for the weekend and she out did herself with excellent food. Rev. Kathy Highmoor came to join us for the evening and gave a blessing on our weekend and the food.
After supper the group played a get to know each other game. After the dishes were cleared away we settled in for a trunk show from Kathy Tanner of Harmony Hand Dyes from Tisdale Sask. Kathy wowed the crowd with her many quilts and wall hanging using her dyed fabric or discharged fabric.
The rest of the evening was time to visit with new friends and, what else, talk quilts.
Saturday morning saw Albert Quon giving an introduction to Thi Chi for those who were interested. Then it was time for breakfast. Each quilter brought a dozen muffins and some fruit. We had so much at the end of the camp we delivered three boxes to the Swan Valley Food Bank.
Our first workshop was on “Discharging Dye” from fabric. This workshop was led by Kathy Tanner. Kathy provided a kit for each quilter and exposed the group to three different methods of discharging dye. Then we were off, exploring this new tool in our quilting belts. Kathy was an excellent instructor and worked the room giving hint, tips and trouble shooting. The morning flew by.
Lunch time came and everyone stopped to fuel up while the vendors set up their little quilt stores for us to acquire more quilting supplies. Kathy Tanner and her husband Ed had many goodies for us to purchase. Wendy van der Walt from Fabricoulous brought her trailer full of items for us to browse. While this was going on quilters were also working on their U.F.O.’s (unfinished objects).
At 2:30 we had our 5 inch fabric swap. The number of square you brought was the number you got to take home. We must have had close to 500 squares to pick from.
Soon supper time was on us and then more U.F.O. time in the evening.
Sunday morning Wade Dale taught a workshop on “Working with curves and circles”. Wade taught the drunkards path. Explain the Concave and Convex of a circle. Using simple methods of using cross hatches the quilters learned how to ease the two parts of a circle together. The second part of the workshop was how you can take a block and by re-cutting a gentle curve into it, you can get movement and totally different look for the block. The third part of the workshop was on how to create quilted landscapes using the methods in the first parts of the workshop.
Too soon it was lunch time. As people ate they filled in their evaluation form of the weekend and with that the weekend was over. Many saying they hoped we would be able to do this again.
There is nothing like getting together with 20 quilters to share ideas and fellowship.
