What Is A Quilt Retreat?

Do you love quilting? Would you love to sew and quilt for several days uninterrupted with friends or family and have fun doing it? Go on a quilt getaway? This is what you call a quilt retreat. You can plan your own small friend retreat and here are 15 things you do at a quilt retreat:

• Treat your quilting friend or family members and yourself to a fun quilting retreat. You can plan it altogether.
• Reserve a place to stay for your Quilt Retreat such as an Airbnb, a condo at a ski resort, or a rent a cabin. (Maybe someone you know has a cabin or home that they will let you use without charging for your getaway. Your lodging place needs a table space for everyone to cut out fabric and room to sew. It should also have enough beds and bathrooms for all of your friends who attend to stay comfortably.
• Give cute invitations to the friends or family who are planning to attend. Each person attending pays a fee for the get away to cover the cost of the rental, prizes, and any crafting fees you will need for teaching new skills, and food. Also give a folder with a schedule for each day of the retreat and a list of what to bring.
• Eat good food. Ask each attendee to help with a meal. Have a couple of days you go out to eat for lunch or dinner. Have quick and easy breakfast and lunch fixings on hand. Then have dinner meals catered by a local restaurant in the town where you are staying.
• Bring your own quilting supplies. Each person attending needs to bring a sewing machine and quilting notions. You may need to bring some fold up tables for each friend to have their own space to cut and sew in.
• Bring quilting projects. Also fabric for new quilting projects they may want to work on.
• Learn new skills. Figure out ahead of time a new skill you and your friends would like to learn. It doesn’t have to be a quilting skill.
• Share quilting ideas. Friends should come ready to share a quilting tip with everyone. Ask each friend to bring fabric for a quilt block of their choice. Designate ahead of time what colors it should be. Schedule a morning to sew these quilt blocks. While at your retreat, sew the blocks into a quilt top. Have a drawing during your quilt retreat and the name that is drawn gets to keep the quilt top.
• Explore local quilt shops where you are staying.
• Visit the local area where you are staying. Maybe do some hiking or biking or just walking around the town. If you golf, take in an afternoon or morning of golf.
• Go to a movie, attend a local play, or visit a museum.
• Have everyone bring quilting gift basket filled with quilting notions and goodies to exchange. Put all the names in a bowl and pull them out one at a time. Mix up the bags and blindfold one person at a time. Number the baskets and put corresponding numbers in a bowl. Then have each person pick a number out of the bowl. That is the basket they get to have.
• Stock popcorn and various treats for your friends. Ask everyone to bring their favorite treat.
• Play games in the evening. Give out prizes to the winners.
• Bring music or favorite movies to listen to and to watch during quilting time.

1. Plan A Fun Quilt Retreat

There are so many ways you can plan a fun quilt retreat. There are existing quilt retreats across the nation that you can attend where everything is provided and you just show up and enjoy. However it can be just as fun planning a small retreat with a few family members or friends. Just imagine the fun of staying up all night chatting and quilting or relaxing and playing games. Exploring a new place, new food, new quilting shops the list could go on.

Decide on a few friends or family members that you would like to take on a quilt retreat. Get together and decide how much each person will pay and where you would all like to go for your getaway. You will be in charge of the fun and you will organize the quilt retreat. Delegate some of the activities to each person attending. For example: delegate the food details, the fun activities, the fun classes to be taught, and where you will stay.

2. Lodging For A Quilt Retreat

Once you decide where you will go for your retreat (and sometimes the best places are hidden in your own backyard) reserve lodging for your group. There are lots of Airbnb’s even in the most remote places. Consider renting a condo at a ski resort during the summer and off seasons. They are more reasonable then and the scenery can be breathtaking. Maybe a cabin would suit your taste. Be creative and find a place that is safe and fun for your guests.

Three things to remember when renting a place to stay:

• There should be enough beds and bathrooms for each guest to stay comfortably.
• A nice kitchen area for any food prep and eating.
• You will need enough table space for each person to cut out fabric and to sew at. You may need to ask the lodging place if they can provide extra tables or have each person bring a folding table bigger than a card table to quilt on.
• A family room, loft, or other large room you can gather in comfortably with everyone together.

3. Invites and Folders

it is always fun to receive a cute invitation to a coming event. Even though you have met with your guests to plan your quilt retreat, make them feel special and get them excited to go on your quilting get away by giving them invitations to attend. You can make the invite (paper or write up the main details on a wood cutout) or purchase some and tweak them to fit your information about the retreat. You an even make a simple flyer and then embellish with stickers, stamps, or fun cutouts. Be creative! You want to get your guests excited about attending! Also give each attending guest a folder with each day’s schedule and a list of what to bring.

4. Good Eats

Who doesn’t like to eat? Plan ahead on your food and prepare it ahead of time so it will be easy to feed your group of guests. Why not put one person in your group over the food. They can assign the dinner meal to each group person for each night you are on your retreat. With the money people have paid for the get away, the person you assign as the “Chef” in residence so to speak can purchase easy to fix breakfast and lunch fixings. Have a simple cereal bar with fruit or sweet rolls, juice and fruit etc…whatever you want. Same with lunch. Then each person takes their turn making or providing dinner. If you would like, go out to eat for lunch or dinner once or twice during your stay. Sample the local cuisine which the assigned chef in your group can check into nearby options ahead of time. One other idea…have dinner catered each night by a local restaurant. After all this is a getaway right?

I Got Skills

My sister in law is an avid quilter. She attends quilt retreats with her quilting friends. oOe of the fun activities they did when the had their get away was canned peaches. Canning is not only a good skill to learn but it is worthwhile. Some of the friends at the quilt retreat she attended had never canned before. So everyone hands on participated and learned how to can peaches in a hot. They each took home a bushel of canned peaches.

You can assign attendees to share a skill that they enjoy and know how to do. It can be an easy craft, maybe an activity as simple as having everyone paint with watercolors on watercolor paper. (I love crafting with watercolor paper without ever even touching a brush to the page!) Perhaps everyone gets to make a wreath with items gathered from a nearby woods. You’ve got this! See who wants to share their talents and you can keep things fairly low cost.

What To Bring

Another point of the quilt retreat is to finish one or more of your projects. Bring the supplies you will need to do a project. Assign one of your guests attending the quilt retreat to call everyone and see if they all have sewing machines and fold up tables. If you don’t want to travel with machines, you could rent them from a local shop where you are staying if that is an option. This person should create a list of what each participant should bring treats, small lamp, iron, and ironing board unless you plan to supply that), quilting supplies, clothes, extra pillow, etc…This goes in the folder you hand to each guest attending along with their invitation.

Ask each person to bring fabric for a quilt block of their choice. Designate what color. (Put it on the list of what everyone needs to bring.) Then have a morning on your schedule where everyone sews their block. During the retreat, you can sew the blocks quickly together (have a plan of how you will put a quilt top together with random quilt blocks with sashing or patchwork.) Then have a drawing at the end of the retreat and one of your guests wins the quilt top.

Share Quilting Ideas

Everyone learns quilting tips and tricks as they learn to quilt. Ask everyone to come prepared to share something they have learned with the group. It can be show and tell baby! When you work so hard on a quilting project, it is fun to share it with those who truly understand what you put into your quilt.

Shop Hop

Like they say, know before you go…since you are the organizer (unless you designate this easy job to someone else) find out what quilt shops or fun boutique shops are in the area where you will be staying. Explore the local shops and maybe arrange for someone to tell you about the quilt guild in the area or the history of quilts in that region. Then “shop til you drop” aka have fun shopping!

Sight Seeing

Check out beforehand what is available to do and see in the area where you are staying. Add in some daily activities like hiking, biking, golfing, swimming whatever the local area offers and schedule activities according to age and abilities of those attending. If your 80 year old Grandma wants to come, tailor activities that will include her or at least make it possible for her to watch. You get my gist.

Entertainment

One night pencil in on your schedule to go to a movie together. Attend an outdoor or indoor musical play. Perhaps there is a concert you can go to or visit a local museum. Make some fun memories and sometimes think outside the box! Show your friends or family you appreciate their taking the time to be together and make this get away memorable.

Goodie Baskets

Don’t you just love surprises? On the list you make, to give to those attending your quilt retreat, ask everyone to put together a gift basket of quilting notions and goodies. (If you want to, put a dollar limit on how much each person can spend.) On the day you arrive, put the baskets on a table and put a number on each. Put corresponding numbers in a bowl. Each attendee gets to pick a number out of the bowl and then gets the basket with that number. It their gift basket. It will be interesting to see how creative each person puts their gift basket together.

Sweets For The Retreat

On the list of things to bring, ask each guest to bring a favorite snack or two to share. That means lots of sewing and snacking. Always a good time with people you enjoy being with. Bring plenty of popcorn all different kinds like caramel, buttered, microwave, and kettle to have on hand for your event. This helps when the munchies hit. OK before you give me the healthy snack speech, of course you can provide plenty of fruit and veggies to snack on. Don’t forget the dip (wink, wink.)

Games

Group games can get everyone laughing and having a fun time. During down time in the evening, play some simple games to get everyone interacting and having fun. If you really want to go all out Have a theme night like a pirate night. (I don’t get paid to advertise this it is just my creative brain speaking.) Play a game like “Skull King”. Then send your guests on a treasure hunt. Have a box (that looks like a treasure chest) have a small fabric bag for each guest with gold chocolate coins, candy necklaces, and small quilting treasures like gold thread, pin cushions, gold thimbles, maybe even a quilt pattern of your own design printed out for them to look like a treasure map.

Bring Favorites

Since you are in charge of this fun event, bring some enjoyable music to listen to while everyone works on their quilting projects. Play it softly in the background so your guests can still visit while they create. (I don’t want to say while they work because that sounds anything but relaxing.) Have movies planned for the evenings you will be staying in and chilling with each other along with games at the ready like already mentioned. Go and your job is to provide the fun and then let the guests and yourself ENJOY!

You might like :

Wonder what kind of supplies you need for quilting? What Are The Basic Tools Needed For Quilting?

Quilting is good for the soul. This post tells you why. Is Quilting Good Therapy?