For our 5th annual sewing retreat we gathered at the St Francis Retreat Center in San Juan Bautista to sew, dine, socialize, and maybe even do a little dancing. The retreat center is set back in the mountains and was a peaceful and beautiful place to spend the weekend. Members were welcomed with guild-themed goodie bags filled with treats from our generous sponsors. Some of our members also contributed to our goodie bags which was much appreciated! Amanda embroidered sewing themed patches which were a big hit! Rhonda contributed big plastic binding spools which were put to use right away by a few people on the finishing stages of their projects. Rochelle, Rhonda, Renee and Jenny made some adorable cell phone cushions and almost everyone had them set up conveniently at their stations right from the start! Thanks everyone!

This year one of our charity projects was to make a bed quilt for the St Francis Retreat Center. Everyone was asked to bring strips of fabric in shades of blue from light to dark. From those we each made a few foundation blocks. By the end of the weekend we had a completed quilt top.

As always, we raffled off prize baskets to raise money for the guild. This year the baskets were better than ever, filled to the brim with tons of fabric, notions, patterns, books, and much much more from our amazing sponsors. The guild received a record-breaking amount of money and 7 lucky winners went home with some amazing prizes. Thank you again to our generous sponsors!

This year each member was given a charm holder with a clay pinwheel charm in our guild colors. We completed tasks to earn sewing related charms throughout the weekend. Everyone had fun completed tasks to earn more charms. The competition for first person and last person in the sewing room was fierce but fun! Two members who took one of each prize met at 4am (1 person just arriving and 1 who had not left yet from the night before) so you could say there was sewing happening around the clock!

We also had fun playing BINGO throughout the weekend. Prizes were awarded to the first BINGO of the day and a grand prize for the first black out. We saw a little competitive spirit in a few of our members who were ready to yell out BINGO at the stroke of midnight, just to be the first one to win for the day. In the end Tricialyn won the blackout. Well done!

Rochelle and Rhonda spent time taking photos of quilts and completed projects. They were happy to share their expertise and assist anyone in getting the perfect picture of their completed items.