Retreats: religious and stitchery related

Before getting to the real topic of this post, I have a little fiber giveaway business to conduct:

Using the extremely high tech method of writing the numbers 1 through 10 on slips of paper, folding them, placing them in a basket and drawing one number... I have selected the number 9.

Since Erynne was the ninth to post a comment, the silk will be starting its journey to her tomorrow morning. Thanks to all who took the trouble to enter my little giveaway.

I was on a religious retreat for the past three days ... a very renewing and relaxing experience ... but even there stitching and stitching friends were to be met. In the free moments and at the evening social gatherings, I would pull out my stitching as would one of my colleagues from the main office. I managed to finish the first of the "Stitching for a Cure" ornaments I have committed to make, got a bit more done on my Miribilia Halloween Faerie and learned of the existence of a decent LNS/Knitting Shop in Manhattan but since I didn't have pen and paper handy at that point, I will have to call Maureen to get the info again. Maureen was working on a lovely needlepoint piece of camellias in a bowl. Very delicate and soft colors. And she joked about being inspired to resume work on a birth sampler in cross-stitch, noting that the child for whome she was stitching was now 6 and had an 18month old brother. The other retreatants, seeing this, reminisced about when they stitched as girls or about stitching relatives or made the usual comments about "not having the patience or time" for such work ... I was good, I resisted the urge to ask if they had time and patience for TV and all the trash it contains.

Tomorrow, I set off for the Mystic [Ct] Stitcher's Hideaway ... a very different sort of retreat in which all my companions will be stitchers, all will share the same enthusiasm for a new fiber or a new designer or a new stitch, etc. etc. etc. And this retreat will be as relaxing and renewing in its way as the first. Odd that they should fall in the same week this year. As a result, today is the only day I am spending at the office ... it'll be a long day, but still, the only day.