VCQ's Celebration 2016

VCQ's biannual retreat concluded a week ago, and we are finally catching up and ready to post some pictures from this event.  If you're not familiar with VCQ, it is the Virginia Consortium of Quilters which is the state quilting guild in Virginia.  We were founded in 1984 to unite quilters all over the state and are still going strong 32 years later.  Every 2 years we have a 4 day retreat we call Celebration with 2 full days of workshops and other fun activities.  Since 2004, we have been gathering at the W.E. Skelton 4-H Center at Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia.  Both Elizabeth and Sue are active in this guild; Sue is finishing up her term as president this year, and Elizabeth has just taken on the role of Program Chair for the quarterly meetings.  In addition, Sue served as co-chair for Celebration.  Hence, our lack of time recently to keep up with regular blog posts.

Here is a photo overview of the retreat -  maybe you'd like to join us in 2018, the last weekend of April!

 Above is a view of the lake from the Central Activities Building, below.  This building houses the dining room and auditorium where evening programs are held, as well as the vendors and silent auction.

Check in was held in the Welcome Center, where participants received their name tags and welcome bags, as well as dropped off silent auction contributions, block lotto blocks, and challenge entries.

The auditorium stage featured a "gypsy tent" to go with our theme "It's Crystal Clear We Are Quilters".  Madam Crystal could be found here during evening programs to gaze into her crystal ball and make predictions for the weekend.

National teachers offering workshops included Victoria Findlay Wolfe and Rayna Gillman.

 Rayna Gillman also gave an evening lecture called "What If?"

On Saturday evening we had a few participants try out a new quilters' card game from Purple Moose Designs called Quilter's Block Party - it is modeled after Pictionary but with quilt blocks.

Here's one set of the Block Lotto blocks that were given away.  There were 9 or 10 sets of blocks drawn for; for each block contributed, participants received a chance at winning a set of blocks.

On the final morning we enjoyed class show and tell and gave away some door prizes - Gloria was the lucky winner of this SewEzi portable sewing table.  We had generous donations from a number of businesses and individuals that were given as part of the welcome bags, activity prizes, and door prizes. 

More to come in additional posts about workshops and show and tell of all the classes!