Back from Handmade U!

What a fun weekend! We arrived on Thursday night at Minglewood Cabin in Gretna, Nebraska. After settling in and seeing old friends and meeting new friends we sat down for dinner. We had a wonderful home made meal. Rachel's dad prepared smoked chicken and Rachel's mom made baked beans.
The first evening was spent getting to know each other by talking and filling out cute little notebooks with answers to a bunch of questions.

On Friday, Michelle Geller of Hold Dear taught us how to make beautiful journals. Her class kits were over the top with beautiful vintage papers. This is a picture of my crafting spot with the kit.
You wouldn't even believe how generous these kits were - the pictures do not do them justice. Not to even mention all the yummy supplies we had access to in addition to the kits!
We worked all day on Friday on our covers and creating our pages to make our journals. The time just flew by and after working all day and most of the night, this is what I came up with:

I love, love, love my journal. Below is a picture of a few of the "spines" of our journals. I embroidered my name on the spine of my journal.

On Saturday, we shifted gears and Rachel taught us to create a "quilt" panel on a canvas. She instructed us on various techniques to use and let us put our own spin on the project. It is amazing to see the different quilt panels. Here is mine:

Here is a collage of all of our panels:

Here is a picture of all of our journals:

Rachel's mom Sara made these beautiful treat bags with our names embroidered on them. Check out Sara's blog for awesome pictures of the the retreat and the cabin we stayed in.

On our final evening we took a field trip to Rachel's parent's home. Her parents cooked a wonderful meal for all of us and we got a "lesson" about Sara's long arm quilting machine. It was quite an evening!
Finally, all the treats!
Hope Ellington made beautiful Handmade U necklaces for all of us, Nora and Lindy made beautiful flower decorations for each attendee and the sponsor gifts were very generous.
Can't wait for Spring semester!