Indulge and Inspire

Sometimes we just need to indulge in something. For some it's putting out the money for boutique chocolate.  For me, it's twice a year retreat.  I almost didn't go this year.  In January I didn't have one dollar saved for the spring retreat so I declined my space and immediately regretted it.  But I pulled up my big girls panties and concentrated on having enough to go to the fall retreat.  Then PH found I had declined and thought I was, as he said, "certifiably nuts" not to go.  I took out my little retreat stash and discovered I did now have enough money and luckily, the space was still there.


                                     The indulgence starts here

 with these lovely ladies taking care of our every whim. All of our comforts are met by them with good cheer and laughter.  All we have to concentrate on is stitching, sharing, reconnecting as friends, inspiration,  a glass of wine or two and rousing ourselves from our chairs to go in for yet another incredible meal fixed by Chef Sharon.  Oh, my.

 Do you remember this quilt I showed you on my Community post?  One of the ladies found these 50 state flower squares at a flea market or garage sale.  All were worked beautifully, packed away in a box and forgotten.  They were purchased for $10.  I never find finds like that!  

One of the things we did as an after-Saturday-night-linger-over-dinner activity was to share some sort of vintage sewing item.   

 Friend Marilyn brought a binder with patterns her mother cut from newspapers in the 1930s and 40s. As we passed the binder around the table Friend Jan noticed a few of the patterns were the very flowers found and worked and now in a quilt!  We didn't know how old the patterns were. I took a few out, turned them over and found an advertisement for a movie that just started showing two days before.  So I went online, typed in the name of the movie and discovered the patterns were printed in 1931! Above is the pattern and below is that flower done. 

 

Living breathing inspiration