2010 Retreat

The Prairie Hens quilt Retreat for 2010 will be Thurs Oct 14 to Sun Oct 17. I will be sending out individual emails soon with all the information.

Mystery swap

Although there are more pictures at Debbie's site I thought I would post these of the Mystery swap we did this year for the first time. It was a lot of fun and I'm sure we will do it again next year. Each participant was to bring approx $20 value of quilty things in whatever type of bag they chose. As you can see we had quite a variety of bags which made it very interesting. I marked each bag as it came in with a scrap of fabric; each person then picked a scrap of fabric out of the paper bag and found the bag that matched. Everyone was very pleased with what they received. I received a kit that looks to be very interesting-I will post pictures when I get it made (don't hold your breath though as it could be awhile before it makes it to the top of the pile).

My pictures from retreat

I have attached a few pictures from the retreat; Debbie's are much more extensive so make sure you check them out also.

Mystery quilt. Hopefully everyone brings their completed one next year and we will do photos of all of them.

Black & White Strip-twist

Scrappy Strip Twist

As was explained in the demo the Strip Twist pattern is provided free of charge by Bonnie Hunter on Quiltville.com. She has a lot of great patterns as well as great ideas on how to deal with scraps as in sorting and using. Be sure to check it out. There is also a new mystery on her website starting soon. This will be scrappy and mostly uses 2 1/2 strips; you may want to check it out.

New Retreat photos

We have a new slide show of this years retreat pictures.

Thank you so much to Debbie for being our official photographer, the pictures are great.

The link to the left is updated - follow the instructions and have a look. In 11 months we will do it again.

Another successful retreat!!!

Thank you everyone for another great retreat. I am back in BC for the winter and although it is raining today it is 11 above so not too bad. Planning underway for next years retreat; it looks like we may be full very soon. I will post pictures here as soon as possible as well as updates regarding next year. If you come to check out the blog, please leave a comment so I know if anyone is looking.

Talk soon.

36 days and counting

I can't believe how fast time is flying now. Only 36 days until the retreat. I thought I was so organized and now I am remembering all the little things that need be done and it seems like very little time. I hope the weather continues to be good until after the retreat, that will make it so much more enjoyable and relaxing for everyone. Back to cutting mystery quilt kits........

Countdown On

Only 45 days left until the retreat, that seems amazing. I knew it was close but that really sounds short when you put the number of days in. Is everyone ready? I know some people have been ready for months and the rest of us will panic the week before but I am so looking forward to seeing everyone.

More mystery quilt

Most of the instructions are typed up and pictures photocopied, now to verify amount of fabric needed and then I can let you all know. I need to cut another kit to make with you at retreat so we have examples in progress.

Mystery Quilt

The Mystery quilt top in Finally finished, very interesting but was becoming a mystery for me. I hope everyone enjoys it. Now I have to figure out exactly what I did so I can calculate amount of fabric, precutting and write the actual instructions. Let the fun continue.

Halloween mystery quilt

I hope lots of you will want to do the mystery quilt, I am having fun planning it. I was going to download a free mystery online but could not find anything I liked so I am designing one just for us. I think it will be lots of fun and hopefully will only take a few hours Saturday afternoon. Once I get mine completed I will send out fabric requirements and pre cutting instructions to everyone interested. I may have some kits available but won't know the cost until I get mine done.

2008 Retreat pictures

I have added a link to a slideshow of great pictures from last year courtesy of Debbie Woods who is a professional photographer. If you attended last year and haven't checked this out you should have a look as it is great. For newcomers please take a look and see the fun we had. Looking forward to a repeat performance for 2009. Click on the link and then choose your story and the password is quilt. Enjoy.

Where we stay

I have added a link to the website for Sunnyside Christian Centre at Sylvan Lake. If you have not been there before please go take a look. It is a beautiful location with lots of space and if weather co-operates you can go for a lovely walk by the lake. 

History of our quilt retreat

Our retreat started in 2003 when we went to Camp Caroline in June for the weekend, there were 17 people at this first retreat and it was great fun. Our only problem was that we did not have enough people to meet the minimum requirements and they were booked for 2 years in advance. So we moved to Rustlers at Sundre for Fall 2004 & 2005. In 2005 we had about 25 people so did 2 retreats 2 weeks in a row as they had only room for 16.

We Began to look for a new location for 2006 and we found our current Sunnyside Christian Retreat Centre which has been great. First year we had a room downstairs(which meant a lot of up & down) as we were sharing the centre with a group doing "stamping". In 2007 we requested a room upstairs and we ended up being the only group there and having the large central room to ourselves which was wonderful. We had close to 30 attendees that year so we asked how many we had to have to guarantee that we didn't have to share the facility so on we grow. It was so much fun we decided to add another day so we would have 2 full days of sewing and I put out the challenge to meet the 35 minimum people so we didn't have to share.

The challenge was met and we had 39 people from Thurs to Sunday in 2008. At this point we have expanded from our original local group to include people from BC, Ontario, NWT and all over Alberta which makes for a very fun & interesting group. It was at this point that we adopted the new name of Prairie Hens(formerly Fabric Fantasy Quilters) which everyone thought was a great name.

The next challenge arose when we had to change our date from the weekend after Thanksgiving which we had booked to the last weekend of the month but everyone has once again come through, thank you, as we currently have 37 registered for this year.  

So onward to Oct 2009 which will some sooner than we think, hopefully we get some summer before then...........

Welcome

Welcome to the NEW Prairie Hens quilt retreat blog. I will try to post updates, reminders, new ideas that need feedback.