Home again ...

... to be fair, I've been back home for almost a week, but this is the first time I've had the time to write. I had a fabulous holiday, thanks to Lovely Lynn and Mr Joe. I loved spending time with with them, Lynn's sister Gail and all her family. I was made to feel so welcome by everyone.

The day after I arrived I went to Lynn's class and met a lot of her Tuesday girls. I loved seeing what they were working on, and just generally chatting to them all. It was interesting to compare quilting in the UK with quilting in the US.

The next day, Lynn and I went shopping,

 and we also discovered a wonderful drink at Starbucks - a spiced pumpkin frappacino.

We went to the Pacific International Quilt show one day. That was just jaw-dropping. In fact, after about 30 minutes I wanted to go home, the quality of the quilts was so high I just felt totally inadequate. I have never seen so many wonderful quilts in one place, and the number of vendors was amazing to me. So much so that I hardly bought anything, apart from a quilt kit. Lynn's sister Gail and a co-worker of hers, Anne were with us and I reckon that if we all compared notes at the end of the day, we'd all have chosen different quilts to photograph. This was my favourite though, although I didn't get a photo of the notes that went with it, so if anyone knows who made it, please let me know so I can give them the credit.

One day we went to a winery, where we may have tasted one or two wines, and I had my first genuine American hotdog.

Then we were off to the cabin with me with my fingers crossed that I would not see any bears while we were there. On the way, we stopped at a roadside pie shop, where they had a really great pumpkin display outside.

The day before the retreat, it rained all day. We stayed in the cabin, all warm and cosy, and Lynn, Gail and I sewed all day to get in practice for the retreat. Well, I say we sewed, we must have done a lot of chatting, a lot of laughing and quite a bit of eating, cos we didn't have that much to show for our efforts at the end of the day.

The next day the retreat started. This was a wonderful experience and I met so many lovely people, who I hope will be friends forever now. Every day Lynn gave demonstrations or little talks on various topics which were very popular. Naughty Nancy also joined us for this event, and I was thrilled when she produced three quilts that she had made when she was pattern testing for me. The photo on the left shows two different versions of Red Sprinkles, and the one on the right is Nancy's take on Colour Boxes.

Dress was informal for the retreat, 

and the food was superb. We often needed to go for a walk round the lake at some point during the day, to walk off a few calories (although I don't think it worked for me!) I did take the bearbells with me though.

Hmm, I must have spent too much time chattering, cos this is all I achieved in three days

All too soon, it was the last day of the retreat, and time for a final group photo. If you look closely, you'll see I'm still clutching my bear bells.

The next day we went to Yosemite. What can I say about that place? Awesome. Here's some photos which say it all far better than I can

After that it was time to return to Lynn's home where we had a relaxing day before it was time to say goodbye again. I had a truly wonderful holiday, met great people and saw some awesome sights, thank you Lynn, Joe and everyone else who helped to make the trip so wonderful for me.

Disclosure: since I could not post photos on the blog, Facebook or Instagram while I was away, I hardly took any, so almost all of the pictures in this post have been stolen from Lynn's blog, without her permission, but I'm sure (I hope) that she won't mind.