Swapaholics Retreat :: The Weekend!

This last weekend I was so fortunate to be able to attend the Swapaholics Retreat hosted by my lovely friends Jamie, Amber & Mari-Ann. The retreat was swap themed {I love swaps!} and that added a fabulous dynamic to the weekend as people got the chance to connect with their previously assigned swap partners. And, as the name makes obvious, most of the attendees were also avid swappers, so many of us knew each other beforehand and finally had an opportunity to connect in real life! If you want to see a wide variety of photos from the weekend and then posts of what people made, either click the image above or check the hashtag #swapaholicsretreat.

I did my best to take a few photos of the space we all sewed, chatted, and swapped in. Since we were in a portion of the ballroom, there wasn’t a lot of light, and, of course, I left my camera at home with the quilt I had planned to work on, so these are all from my iPad. The hosts thought of everything, though. We all had name tag with our name, Instagram username, and a sticky note for our sewing machine, so we could easily find each other.

At every seat there were these awesome swag bags too. I am always so curious what’s in them when I see other people attend retreats, so I thought I’d show you everything I received {there was also an awesome custom bottled water, but I realize now it’s not in the photos…but I want to publish this and not keep waiting!}.

There were coupon codes, patterns, fabric, temporary tattos, and so many other goodies from sponsors {check the sponosr list here!} and rolls and rolls of Pellon products to make our class projects too!

Really, I cannot say enough about the amazing weekend. I feel like I’ve made lifelong friends and will happily sign up for another quilting retreat as soon as I get another opportunity. There is so much more to show and say, so I’ve decided to break it up into a few blog posts, I’ll update the list as I write them, but there are posts to come about the swaps, secret sister gifts, and classes. It’s just too much for one post.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I’ll answer. If you’ve attended a quilting retreat, I’d love to hear about it too, and if you haven’t, what do you most want to know or what would you most like to do?