The Prosser Quilt Retreat

The Retreat House

This was the weekend of the Prosser Retreat and I just finished video calling with my quilting friends there.   

How delightful that was!  How familiar everyone looked!  How natural the interactions with them!  How wonderful to hear their familiar voices and see their faces!

But it was both wonderful and sad. 
Sad, because,.....you know..... life is carrying on there without me. 
I understand it, but  I have mixed feelings about it.

I would love to be there - sewing and chatting and offering suggestions and telling everyone it's time to eat -  and yet, I am content to be here.

Maybe it's because I know I will be returning to it. I know this is a season. I am only here for a short time -  and then I will get to/have to return to my 'real' life.

Only, I know when I return that it will be different from when I left it. Things have changed. People have moved on.  A few friends have died. Babies have been born. a friend has gotten married.  Life has changed for them in small and big ways.Life has continued to happen for them. 
And I know that is how it should be. Life continues to move forward. 

The Prosser Quilt Retreat.

The Sewing Basket a quilt shop in the small town of Prosser, Washington.
I found the quilt shop one winter when I was feeling a need to leave town. It was Christmas time. Actually, it was that week in between Christmas and New Year's and I had a need to "get out of Dodge."

I know I must have been feeling pretty desperate because it was winter. I do not travel in the winter, if I can help it. In fact, I avoid it.  But I felt a need to get away. I was in a season of my life that was difficult and I just needed to get out of town. Even just for a few hours.
And I didn't even want to take anyone with me, which was another unusual thing.

I can't believe they ate outside!  We have never been able to do that before! 
 Doesn't that look peaceful to be by the river?

I Googled 'quilt shops' and learned that there were 2 in Prosser, which is a 30 minute drive from my house. So, off I went. Even when I hit the deep fog covering the road, I kept on. I arrived in Prosser and found the first shop, which was on the main street, only to be sorely disappointed that they were closed!  Really?    So, I looked at Google maps for the second shop, which was only around the corner. But I missed it when I drove by.
After backtracking, I found it next to the river. Only it didn't look like much.
At all. It wasn't hard to miss.
It was a tiny little building.

The Sewing Basket Quilt Shop. It didn't look this attractive in the middle of winter, the first time I saw it.  And from the outside, there is NO indication of all the wonderful things inside!

I sat in the car. It didn't seem like it would be worth my time to go in.
But then I told myself that I had just driven all that way, I needed to at least go in.  So I did.
And that is where I spent the next 2 hours!

Starting with Faye in the dark sweater on the left and going to the left is Marion, Sandra, Sarah,
Kay, Ann, Priscilla, Tracy and Judy  (Janice and Debbie not pictured)

The shop was deceivingly small and was completely FILLED with fabric! Thousands and thousands of bolts of fabrics!  Fabrics stacked on top of fabrics, two and three bolts deep! It was too much to take in!  It is a very old house and each 'room' had it's fabric category -  30's/Reproduction Fabrics in the back room, Foods in the old kitchen - LOL, batiks together, and flannels and brushed cottons in the back room. What a gem this shop was!   I  could have looked all day.

And then.....I learned that the 100 year old house next door belonged to the owner ..... and she rented it out for retreats and such!! YEEEESSSSS!  I'd struck GOLD!   And  the crazy thing is is that I had never even heard of this shop before.

 I got all the details and could not get home fast enough to ask my friends if they wanted to set up a quilt retreat.

And that's how the first annual Prosser Quilt Retreat began 2 months later, at the end of February. 
I think that was 9 years ago. 

This is an old picture from several years ago

The Prosser Quilt Retreat is a wonderful weekend. The house has 6 bedrooms with single and double beds to allow 10 people to each sleep in their own bed. The space downstairs accommodates quilters with their machines and all their stuff, plus 2 extras during the day, if we want to really squeeze together and use up all the space (which we usually do).

Because we can only have 10 sleepers and 2 daytimers, it makes for a nice, cozy group. However, our group of quilting friends keeps growing and so there is always the problem that it is not big enough to accommodate everyone who would like to go. And because there is always someone who cannot make it, the faces are slightly different each year, which I think is great because it makes for a different dynamic each year. 

We have refined the weekend over the years,  and it seems to work pretty smoothly now.
Everyone is on a meal team that plans, cooks and cleans up one meal. We tend to walk into town together for lunches. And we all bring our own breakfasts, since that is such an individualized meal. However, coffee for all and snacks (and by that, I mean chocolate) are brought to share throughout the day.



Of course the goal of going on the retreat is to actually accomplish something. We all bring multiple projects. (I personally bring enough to do for a couple of weeks - you know, just in case) 

 But I think the a big part of it is just the being together. We catch up on each person in a way that does not seem to be able to happen in our day-today lives.  As each person arrives, they tend to walk around and visit with those who are already there and see what the latest projects are.  (It seems that it's really only after the last person arrives that anyone really starts to get anything 'done'.) We help each other with the quilting math. We share what we've learned about new rulers and patterns and techniques. Creativity, opinions, learning, encouragement, laughter, and friendship all happen here. 

Marion likes to say every year, "If I really wanted to get something done, I would have stayed home." And that seems to sum it up. 

 And each time someone completes something, they say, "Ta-da!" and they share their project (and everyone takes pictures).

Faye's 'Ta-da!'

Tracy's 'Ta-da!'

Debbie's 'Ta-da!'

Patty's 'Ta-da!'

(I am sure there were a lot more 'Ta-da!'s' but these are the only pictures I have of this year's retreat.)

One of the best things about this place is - besides being so close to home that you can drive home for something, if you need to - is that the quilt shop is right next door. So, fabric and supplies can be purchased Every. Single. Day. :)   Not bad for her business and great for us - a real win-win.  (We also have a 'show and tell' with the things we purchase.)

The date has moved around a bit. We started at the end of February, but after a couple of years, it seemed it interfered with those who wanted to go to Sew Expo in Puyallup, WA. So we moved it to the 3-day weekend in mid- January for a couple of years.  It's currently in March. 

A lot of the weekend looks just like this......catching up with each other. 

So Sunday I placed a video call and I got to see and talk with each friend there. They did their Show and Tell and each one showed me the projects they had been working on. And it didn't feel like any time at all had passed between us.

I look forward to being at Prosser again next year.  But for now, I am enjoying being here in Thurso, quilting with my new friends - learning new things, being challenged in new ways, and both giving and receiving encouragement. And I'm really looking forward to our week-long daytime quilt retreat in April, which is similar to the Quilt Day Camp that I have had in my house for several summers. I look forward to that again, too.
Again, when it's time. 

*Thank you, Debbie, for taking pictures this past weekend and sharing them with me.