Virtual Retreat Review

WARNING:

Fabrics for a charity block

This is a text heavy post. Feel free to scroll and skim!

Last weekend, I. along with Rosanne, Riza and Alvera who are members of my small group, The Four Amigas, hosted a virtual retreat through the Portland Modern Quilt Guild. Thirty nine participants registered from eight states and three Canadian provinces.

Lots of stitching happened, as well as visiting and there was some learning too! We played games, awarded door prizes, stayed up late, got up early and were inspired by three great speakers. We even included a charity block activity. Being virtual was similar to an in person retreat.
We've received lots of positive feedback 

The first layout

from the attendees making our event a success!

I can't imagine putting on a virtual retreat without being part of a group! Rosanne was our chair. She interacted with the board as we needed.  Budget approval, invoice payments and publicity chair interaction was behind the scenes important work. Our guild publicity chair put together terrific posts for social media which drew people to sign up for the event.

A second layout option

Alvera worked out the schedule. Riza came up with a game that we could play virtually called Blank Slate. Riza modified it to have a quilting theme and only exact matches were awarded one point. People were on their honor to tally their scores. I found a link to play virtual Bingo. It was fun and easy. 

We used Cynthia's (Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework)  Scrappy Chains block as our charity block. I wrote a tutorial for making the block and included information on how to mail it. 

A third layout option

Rosanne made a block a few days before the retreat. She texted me a photo and wrote that her block read purple. The original directions were to use solid or fabrics that read as a solid in one color way. Rosanne's block did not meet the fabric requirements. I let her know about the solid fabric. She said she didn't remember that part. I laughed. She was the one that wanted the solid fabrics!

Riza happened by Rosanne's and echoed the same sentiments about her fabric choices. Rosanne was excited to have used her scraps to make the blocks as now she had made more than one. Riza read the directions out loud and Rosanne immediately replied, "you know I can't follow directions and you know I don't read. This wasn't in Audible!" Rosanne listens to a lot of books! We laughed. 

Adding more blocks to the design

We laughed again when Rosanne discovered she put together her block using the photo of the back of the block rather than the front of her block. She was going to employ Jack and rip out the block

I said leave it. I stated that we would likely receive more blocks with that orientation and it wouldn't matter. We would have the strong pattern of the chain blocks which would carry the design.

Lupine and Laughter as a flimsy

In the end, seventeen people made blocks. We haven't received all of them. We did receive enough before and during the retreat to play with different layouts. The top will be sewn vertically; but, horizontally was the best way to display the blocks. That errant block stitching actually works well with the layout that we chose! Now, we are wishing we had more! We are all laughing!!

Rosanne has volunteered to sew the blocks together and quilt it. The finished quilt or quilts will be given to the charity group at PMQG. I love Riza's layout. Those blocks are super happy!

I also was the contact for the speakers that we hired.  Our speakers were, Sarah Goer (Rules and Options of Planned Improv Piecing), Karen Bolan (Collaboration Is Fun) and Sarah Ruiz (Inspiration to Quilt). Feedback from the participants was that they not only liked the speakers; but, were inspired by the topics.

Green string prewashing and processing

The retreat was open from 5pm Friday until Sunday at 1pm. Most hours of the retreat were hosted. Rosanne managed the Zoom session most of the time. Rosanne is a night owl. Alvera lives in an earlier time zone so she logged on 4am our time which was 7am her time. Riza and I filled in as needed. 

After paying the speakers, we used the remaining money as prize money. Our goal was not to spend money on postage or "things" so we could have more prize money to award. We also knew that a number of our participants didn't have access to a printer, so we wanted all the information able to be used digitally with printing as an option. 

Rosanne set up a number generator program and drew names for our drawings which were $25 electronic gift certificates that were from businesses that support PMQG. If the winner lived outside the business area, the winner chose their favorite area quilt shop.

Quilt waiting for more stitching time

In between, we had breakout rooms. One was for quiet. .. when the conversation became too much and you wanted to sew with a smaller less talkative group for a bit. This was requested during the planning stages; but it wasn't used. 

We had a social issues breakout room. We had a participant from Minneapolis and ten people went there to learn about the happenings in the city. That happened as the retreat opened and all members were back by the time the speaker was ready to present. No one else requested going to the room. 

Some progress is made

The third breakout room was for demonstrations and small group chatting. This room was used once for chatting and twice for demonstrations. One demonstration was two methods of applying a facing to a quiltIt and the other was how to achieve a quarter inch seam. The breakout rooms were available 24/7. To join a room, you needed to ask the host to assign you to the room. All participants were invited to join when a breakout room was requested.

It was a fun experience and I would do it again. I can't say I accomplished much. I did finish the flimsy of Lupine and Laughter. I did finish prewashing and prepping some strings for my RSC blocks. I even spent some time quilting my 2022-2023 Temperature quilt. 

Making progress on the quilting of the temperature quilt was goal number four and attending the retreat was goal number eight on my February list. Linking to Oh Scrap and Sew & Tell.