Ladies' Retreat

Every so often my Wednesday morning gang of women and I (I am a woman also) get ourselves organized enough to go away for a weekend. Two years ago, we went to Sackville, New Brunswick to a great old fashioned Bed & Breakfast so that we could see an exhibition that one of us had work in. It was a great trip, Victorian style rooms and food, devil-spawn dolls all over the place, a wonderful boardwalk through a protected marsh, art supplies and lots of laughs.

This year, we went to the mouth of the La Have River, onto the La Have Islands. We rented a house with almost enough beds for everyone. We try not to share beds anymore, but sometimes it happens.

 

We had amazing views overlooking the river mouth and the Atlantic Ocean. We had every kind of weather, thick fog, high winds, temperatures too warm for coats and 4 inches of snow. Everyone brought pre-prepped food, little cooking was done there. One of us made lovely crepes on Sunday morning, there were make it yourself pizzas, an amazing soup and another amazing curry chicken. Wine flowed, treats kept appearing and we talked and laughed forever.

The tides were supper high this weekend, and low tide was too early in the morning for slothful women. We had to go a little further for a beach walk.

Risser's Beach has a great sandy crescent beach and a boardwalk through a salt marsh.

 

Only the snow bunnies were about.

 

We all had some kind of stitching to work on, books to read, games to play and beds to nap on. We had set ourselves a challenge in the fall to make a vessel/pocket out of Sashiko textiles.

 Sashiko stitches on a Celtic pattern and an original central motif. The book is a holder of ideas.

Machine stitched with white topstitching thread, three different traditional patterns. A holder for a kindle device.

 

 

A fish, because the clamshell/waves pattern reminded the maker of scales. The fish's mouth will hold the spare 

key.

Traditional clamshell/waves pattern. The red thread is linen and the textile has been washed. The left side is being stitched with a blue linen thread, and is unwashed. An eventual laptop cover.

These are the works in progress, except for mine, as I forgot to photograph it. It will probably be more than a year before we sort ourselves out enough for another trip. One of us is heading to Japan for a month, another is going on a 6 month traveling sabbatical. We will live in hope of good presents when they return. Then winter and it is super ugly to organize a weekend like this. We are idly wondering if those of us not traveling can visit New York in the fall?