My First Quilty Friends Still Retreat Together

Turkey Tracks: March 2, 2022

My First Quilty Friends Still Retreat Together

Members of my very first quilting “bee” from back in Virginia are on their annual winter retreat this week. They “adopted” me when I was a new quilter (1999) and taught me what I needed to know to have accurate blocks, for one thing.  Our local Falls Church quilt group (part of the state guild) was large enough that members were placed into “bees” made up of smaller numbers, which did work to facilitate getting to know other quilters faster. My bee often met together outside the monthly big-group meeting.

These women invited me to go with them on their annual summer retreat in 2003, and I made my first grandchild quilt that week. I’ve kept an archive of all my quilts: this quilt was my 20th. I took a picture of the picture in my archive. That sweet creature is Miss Reynolds Georgia, my beloved rat terrier who lived to be about 16.

For many years after we moved to Maine, I flew back to be with these dear friends during their winter retreat week.  And two visited me in Maine one summer shortly after we moved—and were able to attend the annual Rockland Lobster Festival, have a ride on a local windjammer that sailed out of our Camden harbor, and sight-see daily.

Back then, this small group (never more than about 5) would go on week-long retreats twice a year.  Rosie Pilkerton has a timeshare that she would get for us in Williamsburg, and the winter trip was timed around the big Mancuso quilt show that is now held in the Norfolk area’s Convention center, having had to move years ago when the show got so big that it needed more space than that provided from many separate buildings in the Williamsburg area. What a treat those weeks of dedicated quilting time were.

I face-timed with my friends yesterday, and what fun it was to see their faces, to hear how they are and what they are sewing this week.  It was a trip down memory lane, for sure. I asked them to share some of their quilt pictures, so I could share them with you. Rosie sent me several of what she called her ”covid quilts,” along with this picture of what she will work on at least some of this week—a pineapple block made with 1930s reproduction fabrics:

Rosie LOVES whimsical novelty fabrics, and especially those that reproduce 1950s-type images. You can look for those two loves of hers in the following pictures.

Paper dolls…

And a truly fun quilt:

I’ve never met a log cabin block I didn’t like, Rosie. How fun and colorful is this project.

It is fun to see the work of people who live in a different region than I do.

And Rosie has been quilting seriously longer than I have!!

Thanks Rosie!