Hey everyone! Welcome back to the weekly grind. I have lots to do today but I wanted to take a quick minute to say what a wonderful retreat we had last week. My annual Red, White, and Blue Summer Retreat was attended by 30 lovely and talented women from all over the country. They came from California, Utah, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Alabama, the East Coast, and right here in good old Wisconsin (hopefully I didn’t miss any)! We worked on a beautiful recreation of one of my antique quilts, a painted barn quilt, and three brand new patriotic inspired pillows over the course of the week.

Retreaters learned things like bias binding, putting in a hidden zipper, more efficient ways to cut, how to stitch lettering, and when to rip vs cut fabric to name a few. We also painted barn quilts, made friendships bracelets, and went on a shopping field trip to some of my favorite local places. Not to mention, the food was delicious as always – we even had a Prime Rib dinner on Saturday Night!!!

What I love most about my retreats is spending time with my guests and really getting to know them. It is truly a blessing! I have the best customers and I absolutely love it when we become friends. Thank you ladies for making the 2024 Red, White, and Blue Retreat extra special. I hope you all come back next year!!!

Doesn’t it look like a blast? We had a wonderful time and took home some really awesome work on top of it. If you’d like a closer look at the projects we made on this retreat, you can read more about them all in my blog post from last Friday by clicking HERE! There are also links for each project posted there for your convenience!

If attending a retreat at The Gathering is on your bucket list, consider signing up for our next one! I’m sure you’ve heard that nationally renowned Shibori expert and instructor, Debbie Maddy will be here this August! Shibori is a Japanese tie dyeing method that traditionally uses indigo dye with white cotton fabric to make distinctive blue and white patterns. Done by hand, it produces a variety of patterns on fabric by using wringing, pressing, and squeezing techniques. It’s super cool!

Last time Debbie was here I got the opportunity to explore some dyeing techniques that I’ve never tried before – and had a ton of fun doing it! One technique I tried involved scrunching fabric around a pipe to create a cool looking striped effect. I also got to play around with dyeing wool with Indigo, which produced some super pretty blues that we don’t normally see with wool. I even tried my hand at applying dye over stitching using Indigo, and ended up with some really neat star pattern results to show for it. Pretty neat!

There’s no better time than now to take the plunge and come on retreat! Debbie’s classes are fun and informative, and great for all ability levels! Not only does she teach you all about Indigo and Shibori, she also explains how she comes up with her fabric designs for Moda, and the techniques she uses to achieve them. If this sounds like something you’d like to try, give the gals at The Gathering a call at 920-778-8031 to sign up! Can’t make it in August? Remember, you can always check out what’s happening in the future at Primitive Gatherings and The Gathering on our Interactive Events Calendar by clicking HERE!

Just a quick reminder… Due to a temporary scheduling conflict, CommentSold times will vary through early July, so please remember to turn on your notifications so you don’t miss us! FYI, our next show will be tomorrow – TUESDAY, June 25th, 2024. Time time hasn’t been nailed down quite yet, but we hope to see you around 1:00/1:30 p.m. CST. And speaking of LIVE shows tomorrow, don’t forget to tune in for STITCH Brothers at 11:00 a.m. on my YouTube Channel, STITCH with Lisa Bongean! You can watch by hitting the STITCH button below. Take care, and see you soon! ~Lisa