Lake Yale Quilt Retreat

I arrived home a little before 5pm last night from our four day, three night quilt retreat at Lake Yale.  What fun was had by all 62 of us!  Yes...62!  The retreat center is located in Eustis/Leesburg, FL at the Lake Yale Baptist Conference Center.  They own acres and acres of beautiful wooded land around a central lake, aptly named Lake Yale.  It was very beautiful and serene.  Other than the fact that the mattresses were a bit hard and the lack of suitable lighting because the room was so large and the ceilings so high (we were all told to bring our ott lights and such to help remedy the situation), it was a wonderful time.  Click here for a link to the Lake Yale Baptist Conference Center website if you want to browse.  Just click on the video strip embedded in the picture at the top of the home page.

What was even more enjoyable was there were two additional/separate quilt groups meeting in different buildings/conference rooms during the same timeframe as our group, so we got to go visit more lovely quilters and ooh and ahh over the projects they were working on.  Many new friendships were formed.  :o)

It was quite nice to not have to worry about everyday things, like walking my dog and cooking.  Our meals were served cafeteria-style in an adjacent building.  Breakfasts were served at 7:30-8:30am, lunches at 12:00-1:00pm and dinners at 5:30-6:30pm.  I swore I gained 10 pounds, but got on the scale this morning and only gained 2.5 pounds.  Whew...

I made quite a bit of progress on three of my UFOs:



Waste Not, Want Not


The first I worked on was my Waste Not, Want Not project made from 1-1/2" scraps from Keepsake Quilting dating back to when they gave Gold members a pinked scrap of each of their available fabrics for the year -- probably very early 2000.  I had decided I didn't want to "waste" them and sorted some of them by color family and decided to make blocks.  I only had the center of about 4 done and sitting in an untouched bin, but was able to get all 9 sewn and sashed at the retreat, and now have to decide how I want to set them into a quilt.



Batik BOM


The second project is a BOM from probably 2007 when I still lived in NJ.  It's a batik paper-piecing project and I got three of the 12 blocks pieced.  More to go, but further than I was, considering I had absolutely nothing done on that project before the retreat...  *grin*



Ribbon Swirls


The third is my Ribbon Swirls quilt I designed several years ago.  I had the pieces all cut and ready to assemble, so was able to put together 6 blocks.  I need to make 36 more for a 6x7 layout.

We had a snack table (OMG!) and raffles all retreat long.  My name was the third or fourth pulled for a "thanks for coming" prize raffle, so I was able to pick a really nice prize.  I decided on a Hemming House layer cake by Moda.  Yeah, like I need more fabric.  LOL.  They also had a 50/50 raffle and a major-prize raffle. 

Here I'll share with you some pictures of all the fun in progress.  It was inspiring to see all the different projects everyone was working on and at the end of the retreat we had a show and tell of everyone's accomplishments.
 

Hope you had a prolific few days also,
Suzy