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The Purple Moose Quilt Retreat
At the Snowy Owl Inn, Waterville Valley, NH, in the heart of the White Mountains at peak leaf season
Most quilt teaching jobs are in the standard Grange or church basement, a basic rectangular box, often in a basement. You reach it by going to an airport (ugh), flying to another airport (ugh), connecting to a third (or heaven forefend a fourth) airport. Frequently with long layovers in loud seating areas with expensive coffee and stale food. The quilters are always fun, but the getting there, not so much. This time was GLORIOUSLY different! I drove 5 hours from my home in Maine to the White Mountains in NH where Terri Sontra, of Purple Moose Designs, held her first (hopefully annual and then semi-annual) retreat. Terri has been looking for the right venue for several years and finally found the Snowy Owl Inn nestled in the heart of the mountains.
The Snowy Owl Inn, Waterville Valley, NH
I can tell you right now, I want to go back as a participant and just sew and play at a retreat–been far too long since I’ve been on one, Terri wants to do things RIGHT, the lodge owners were incredibly wonderful…well, anyone wanna come play?
Balinese Garden table runner (c) Sarah Ann Smith (Pattern available here)
Terri selected my Balinese Garden pattern for the Saturday teaching portion of the retreat. We all arrived Friday afternoon in time for dinner. Class, which was optional for the participants, was Saturday, but pretty much everyone ended up doing a bit of something I was teaching–FUN! Saturday evening Alison Bolt came and gave a humorous talk. Sunday was more sewing–Terri invited me to stay the weekend (which happened to be the long holiday weekend AND peak color in New England for the leaf-peepers) but I needed to return home (fooey!), then folks went home Monday. Like I said, I wanna come back as the not-teacher, too! Several of the ladies went for walks in the woods nearby, and one took a free guided hour-long hike Sunday morning (put on by the town/center).
The students did fabulous work with my pattern–I love it when folks cut loose! So I’ll salt in photos of what they did throughout this post.
Love the soft, spring colors in this.
What’s awesome is how she did it…
Ann wasn’t feeling well and packed in a hurry to head to the retreat after work. She tossed in this multicolored batik and made all her leaves and flowers from it! That’s called making your fabric work for you!
Terri had some laudable (and achieved) goals for the retreat: beautiful location, reasonable lodging fees, good and plentiful food on site (the Inn doesn’t normally run a restaurant full time, but they fixed meals for us and we snarfed), a FULL table per person, and the lighting in the room was REALLY good–no one needed to bring the usual array of extra lamps. We had participants from Massachusetts, Maine, NH and Vermont.
As you can see, we had lots of room. Terri had her booth stuff (she vends at quilt shows) set up at the entry with all sorts of useful goodies (including a great selection of needles and batiks, yes I bought some!). I had the other end for my samples etc. Each student had an entire table to use, and there were elevated cutting stations and ironing boards in the center. And in the lower left, the table with the drawings/prizes. The swag bags for participants were to die for wonderful, too! Even Alison (the lecture) and I got our own name tags and mugs! Thank you, Terri!
Didn’t this table runner turn out amazing? When class broke for dinner on Saturday, she had maybe three flowers put together. Came in the next morning and she had this DONE plus (see next photo). She even got some sleep, but she stayed up WELL past my bedtime!
She had these extra leaves to practice on as I suggested, since you play with thread colors and stitches on your machine With a “spare to practice” you don’t have to pick stuff out!
Here’s a cheerful sample. What I love is seeing students take fabrics I’d never think to use and come up with something they love! Very cottage-y!
Love her blues. Starr worked on several projects on Saturday, so glad she got so much done.
The female half of the Snowy Owl Inn owners got to take the class, and I’m so annoyed I didn’t get a photo of the finished top–I thought I had. It turned out GREAT! Here it is in progress.
I love for how this student brought fabric that echoes my pattern and is using my process to enhance the fabric. She is relatively new to sewing, but has a great eye and good design sense.
This student has a quilt/bedspread she made and wants to make a wall hanging to go in the bedroom. She brought the fabric used in the quilt, so we figured out how to use some of that fabric in the top.
She brought out the fabric to show her neighbor-table-mate, and we both said BORDERS! Make it bigger, use it as a border. Isn’t this FAN-flippin’-TASTIC?!!!! I so want pics when it is quilted. She bought some gold thread to use. Swoon!
Next year, Terri has Ami Simms booked. I may not do the project/class, but I want to go and laugh! If Eli’s cross-country season runs the same, I could leave after the meet on Friday, be in NH by bedtime, and spend the weekend…..hmmmmm……..
Anyway, if you are looking for a great getaway retreat, I can say hands-down Terri’s was great. Now, can I really escape for a play weekend? Since I began teaching a decade ago (a DECADE? Already?!!!!!????) I haven’t gone away to play at quilting, feeling that I am gone enough. But I’m taking next year off of teaching to be home for Eli’s senior year and sports. So…..if I wait until after that week’s meet is over…….Terri, when do you start taking deposits?
October 29th, 2014 at 6:40 pm
Fantastic project! Sarah, you sure do get around…I could have sworn I saw pix of you at the Houston show!!!!