Day 17

The PALs Retreat is over for another year. Wow what a blast! I just can't say enough about this retreat. Amy (the retreat coordinator) did an amazing job through all the hurricane chaos. She didn't even have power at her own house until after she got here for the retreat. Luckily she had a family member that was able to check on her house for her. Plus with our normal hotel still closed! She had to coordinate a move to a different hotel. Even though our normal hotel pretty much told her to just cancel the retreat. Boy the 92 women that did show up was glad she didn't cancel. We laughed and told stories. Laughed and solved the world's problems. Laughed and more laughing. Oh and we stitched a little bit haha.

This year I also took a class. Here is what the finished piece will look like...

It's by Diane Herrmann called Walking the Water's Edge. The only way you can do this piece is to take the class. She was an excellent teacher and even though I was very nervous I really enjoyed it after a little bit of learning. This is a canvas work piece. It's really a bargello type of piece if you have ever heard of that. You do this one upside down so you start with the bottom if that makes sense. Here is my progress after the day...

The red is all basting stitches and will come out later. The eyelet part is supposed to be the sea foam off the waves. It's hard for me because there isn't a pattern for that part. You just do what you feel looks like the foam. 2 different widths of pearl cotton is used. Here and there to look random. The first band isn't completed yet but she wanted us to started the 2nd line so we could see how it's done a little bit. Especially with the moving down and learning the different shading for each band. There are 26 bands I think total. I can't wait to work on it again but it takes more thought than I wanted to use while chatting with the other ladies.

The piece I worked on while at retreat this year was...

 

A variation of Beach Blessings by Erica Michaels. The special version was a PALs 2015 exclusive with the extra border around it with the Myrtle Beach info added. The other picture above is my progress on the piece last time I worked on it in April. I decided to work on it during the retreat this year. Here is how far I got...

I almost have made it to the top left corner. I definitely did more talking than stitching though haha.

I have a lot more to share but no energy tonight. The retreat was finished up yesterday since the conference room was booked today. So we went back to being a tourist. We went out to eat a delicious breakfast. After that we went to a flea market and found some Christmas gifts and what nots. We drove down to a store we like to stop at and they were having a craft/art festival. So of course we were forced to walk through it haha. Found more Christmas gifts to put back. What a great accident to stumble on. Then we went to the old hotel we normally stayed at here. It was so sad to see it in the state it is. Still closed a week after Hurricane Matthew!! They must have really had damage indeed. Plus seeing the long fishing pier gone was just so sad! After driving around and taking pictures of the damage we had some time before our dinner so we stopped at an arcade and played some games. We had a blast. Then it was time to head to Pirate's Voyage. It's a Dolly Parton dinner show we just LOVE. This time we were lucky enough to grab 2nd row seats so that was amazing. Boy did we enjoy it. Jeremiah just couldn't stop smiling the whole time. But it was a long day full. So now I'm off to bed. Tomorrow is our last day to be a tourist here in Myrtle Beach. I'll try to talk more about the retreat soon too.