SISTERS STATLER RETREAT 2009 Posted on 22 Jul 12:14 , 0 comments
What a great time we Statler Sisters had in Sisters Oregon during the outdoor quilt show. Thank you to Ron and Jan for opening up your home to host our annual retreat. Betsy and Ron kept us well fed serving up snacks and a choice of beverages in a timely manner as well as keeping with our traditional dishes … Ron with his baked halibut and Betsy with her scrumptious pear walnut salad. And we mustn’t forget our dessert tradition … only in Oregon … Marion berry pie!
The show was packed with eye candy and inspiration. Lots of picture to share with one another in ongoing slide shows for each screen saver. Lots of sharing and group problems solving our way through the new features of Creative Studio V2; a little more exploration into the world of Auto Sketch for those who were interested; some designing with Electric Quilt; and some play with the inks, paint sticks, crayons and colored pencils on wholecloth blocks. Thank you, Ruth, for sharing your expertise with us and looking forward to learning even more next year. And a special thanks goes out to Lori who quickly became our resident IT person for the weekend helping us find new ways to keep ourselves safe and organized while out in cyberspace.
We continued with tradition with a trunk show from my quilt closet on Sunday evening. In addition to the joy of seeing actual stitch-outs of many different and new designs we had lots of good discussion about:
- wholecloth … design, execution, and general processes and techniques
- design decision making … choosing designs to enhance the piecing and using the provenance of the quilt to assist in the decision making process; combining designs
- business practices and decisions – advertising, pricing, promotion
And … looking ahead to the retreat 2010 … exploring techniques and inspiration to increase the presence of quilts completed with the Statler quilting system in the Art Quilt World, playing with wholecloth linen design techniques and processes, and continued growth and refinement of our skills in using Creative Studio.
But the best part of all … each retreat serves to help us build on our relationships with each other encouraging, inspiring, and sometimes a simple poke in the arm that helps us continue to share our passion for quilting with our customers, our friends, and our families.
Thanks to all of you gals – you Sims Sisters of 2009 for a wonderful weekend!