Retreating Near Green Bay

I’m posting this week from Iron Mountain, Michigan, where I’ve been invited to be the “featured quilter from Wisconsin” at a wonderful show 😊. What a blessing! I’ll be organizing my thoughts and photos this week and share them with you in my next post. In the meantime – I hope you’ll enjoy reading about another of my travels from a few weeks ago.

Marie and I have traveled around Japan and the UK together. Sew, when she asked me to join her and a group of friends on a retreat in September ~ I jumped at the chance. And now I have more quilting friends ~ WooHoo!

We stayed at the Posie Too! crafting retreat in Suamico, WI. It was just over a 2 hour drive for me, and I wondered why this group of friends who live south of Milwaukee decided to travel so far. I discovered that they had been retreating together for years, and then Linda moved to Eagle River. They found this crafting retreat halfway between.

It’s not fancy on the outside (it shares a building with a used car shop), but the inside is spacious and lovely and it’s within walking distance of Green Bay (the bay, not the city). There were 6 of us, so we had plenty of room to spread out and create.

And the kitchen was well appointed.

This sweet group of ladies welcomed me in, and there were so many wonderful projects being made.

Marie was making sampler blocks inside of spools – lovely!

Linda was doing some amazing paper piecing.

Kathy’s yellow and blue diagonal set top was delightful.

Colleen’s king sized Hunters Star top had the most amazing collection of blue fabrics.

And Mary Jo’s hand appliquéd blocks blew me away (stay tuned for a future post with more of her work).

I began the retreat by working on Betsy’s VW quilt (featured in last week’s post). I decided it was such a silly and playful quilt it needed fun free motion quilting ~ and I had a happy time doing just that!

I decided to sneak this photo in here because we finally got together with Betsy and family to celebrate her birthday this past week. She really liked her quilt!

OK – back to the retreat…

I hadn’t been to any quilt shops in Green Bay, so three of us took a short road trip ~ and we weren’t disappointed. The first shop we found was “My Favorite Quilt Shop” – and it was worth the trip!

The Police Call Box above is actually a “Little Free Library”. It added to the charm of this very interesting shop.

Every room on two floors was filled with fabric, notions, and loads of other interesting stuff!

And quite a few bargains. We had a great time exploring all the nooks and crannies – and made a few purchases too.

From there it was a short drive to Quilting Divas.

It’s a more traditional style quilt shop. With loads of fabric, supplies and friendly people.

While there I really enjoyed meeting Becky and her group. They meet regularly in the shop and make charity quilts. As she explained their purpose I knew you’d want to read about them.

In the middle of this photo is the pile of quilts they’d made that day!

And here’s the group’s information as sent to me by Becky:

“Our group name is Quilters for HOPE, we meet one time per month At Quilting Diva’s in Howard, WI and sew charity needs.  We hope next January that we can start meeting 2X per Month. Currently, our group supports several charities that we sew for.

We are making Cancer large throws to support patients during Chemo and beyond, Project Linus, both quilts and Self Binding Receiving blankets, Wounded Warriors of Wisconsin in Gleason, WI, they take twin size quilts for Veterans, We are making Brooke’s Bags for Antigo, WI (these bags are filled with tampons, pads, toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant, etc), the school nurse passes them out to those in need so they can continue to go to school during their monthly cycle)

We held a Brat Barn Fundraiser to help support us to buy batting, backing material, and background fabric.  We are always looking for donations of good quality 100% cotton or Good Quality Flannel.    We also support some of our funds through Thrivent members, they are able to lead Action Teams 2X per Year and can get $250.00 per time.  This has been very helpful to help us with our batting needs.Our Group Goal: To continue to Give HOPE to those in need and support our communities.

I have attached one of our special quilts we sewed as a group and made a quilt for the Bra’s on the Bay event here in Green Bay, WI.  The event is held on October 22nd and this quilt will go up for Silent Auction to help them raise money for reconstruction cost for those in need. You can check out the event by searching on the Internet. Great event.“

What a giving group! And what a wonderful retreat! Isn’t is a blessing to get to hang out with quilters!!!

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And one more thing…

At the retreat I needed to change my rotary cutting blade. I showed the ladies my magna-dots and how handy they were for this chore.

I purchased these magnets with handles from an artist out east, and she doesn’t always have them available online. That’s when Colleen showed me her version – the magnet is glued to a cork!

I thought there might be a few of you out there who would like to make rotary blade changing tools of your own. For a post on how to use them click here. Thanks Colleen!