Elevated Stitches Recap

I just had one of the best weekends of my life!

Last August I began discussions with the staff at Handi Quilter about hosting my own retreat in their facility. As it turned out, there were a few weekends when the education studio would be sitting empty because the Studio Educators were teaching in Australia. I grabbed one of the weekends and started planning.

I put the news out to the world in November about my retreat which I decided to call Elevated Stitches. In just 2 weeks the event was SOLD OUT! I couldn’t believe it! I couldn’t wait to meet the 20 participants from all over the United States.

Once the event was a go I had to really start getting things lined up. I hired a couple of the other HQ Educators to be assistants and one of my besties to take care of food and transportation. Many thanks to Sandy, Lynette and DiAnna- they made the retreat special. There is no way I could have pulled it off without them.

On February 12 we kicked off the event with a pizza party at the CottonTree Inn in North Salt Lake. It was fun to finally see all the faces in real life and to see everyone hit it off right away.

On Thursday morning we headed to Handi Quilter Headquarters to get started with our advanced Pro-Stitcher training. We spent most of the day learning how to handle a whole cloth quilt and everyone worked on custom quilting a panel that I designed for the event.

Before we left for dinner at Black Bear Diner, we had a lesson about how to use Inktense pencils and everyone made swatches and then worked on adding their artistic touches to a stitched quilt block. I enjoyed watching the magic happen as their voices lowered and they enjoyed the artistic process.

On Friday we learned about connecting designs both for straight line stitching and to make computerized mandalas with Pro-Stitcher. The circles really boosted their creativity and it was fun to see what they could make. Our project for the day was stitching out a notebook cover and the students really did a great job. They learned a lot from the practice and it got them thinking about Pro-Stitcher Designer.

We had a lesson about painting with Lumiere paints from Jacquard. Since they had so much fun the day before, I knew the Lumiere paints would be a big hit. . . and they were! One cool thing about these paints is they can give good coverage on dark fabrics. We all painted the Assymetrical Feather Block from My PS Patterns.

Dinner on Friday was catered by Olive Garden at Handi Quilter since I was pretty sure we couldn’t get into a restaurant on Valentine’s Day. Mr. Collins came up for dinner andj brought everyone a box of Almond Toffee from V Chocolates in Salt Lake City. It is my favorite candy! After dinner a few participants went back to the hotel but most stayed and finished their painting or took advantage of the free time to finish some of our day 1 and 2 projects.

I could not believe Day 3 had arrived so quickly! On Saturday morning we took class photos and then began learning about ProStitcher Designer. Within an hour these amazing students were able to personalize text, add echoes and stitch out their own creations. We also learned how to turn embroidery designs into longarm designs. Some of the students had hundreds of embroidery designs already on their computers so they were off and stitching.

It was sad when I had to say goodbye to these wonderful quilters and now friends. I may have shed a few tears! I just cannot believe how well things went and how connected we all were after just a few days. I am already thinking about the next retreat weekend. . . I hope Handi Quilter is interested in a repeat!

If you would like to be on my WAITLIST for the next Elevated Stitches, click the link below and you will be notified.

If you are ready to jump in and learn Pro-Stitcher Designer, I have an online course and registration will open soon. StitchReady is an online video course that is 8 weeks long and teaches you all the ins and outs of Pro-Stitcher Designer. In addition to the videos (which you will be able to access for TWO YEARS!) there is a LIVE component to the class where we have Zoom meetings and you can ask questions. If you have a problem you can send the file, I will figure out what is going wrong, and video the fix. This is a one-of-a-kind course that only runs a couple times a year, so don’t miss out!