I just came back from my first ever quilt retreat. I’ve never thought it sounded like something I would want to do, but last fall shortly after my brother died, it sounded like it was a good idea; something different and something that would break up the dreaded month of January.

Preparating to go to a quilt retreat is not an easy task. Not only do you have to take your personal items, you also have to put your sewing room on wheels and take it with you. Well, maybe not literally but dern close. I had a whole page of things I needed to bring, a sewing machine, foot pedal, extension cord, scissors, needles, thread, pins, rulers, a rotary cutter and iron, just to name a few. And that doesn’t take into account that you have to prepare for whatever you might want to work on by making sure you have all the fabric you need and that it is cut and ready to be pieced plus assembling everything you might need to take the classes offered.

Two weeks before my prep week, I decided I wanted to contribute to the table favors and decided to embroider bookmarks or ornaments for all 56 women attending. What I didn’t take into consideration was that each of the individual items took half an hour to stitch out. Wow.

The retreat was held at the Cedar Creek Conference and Retreat Center in New Haven, Missouri. New Haven is a rural area in the rolling hills of wine country. The website Journal and Topics (https://www.journal-topics.com/articles/missouri-wine-country/) describes the history of Cedar Creek.

Travelers looking for a taste of the Old West can satisfy their inner cowboy at a 200-acre estate in the rolling hills of Missouri’s wine country, just an hour outside of St. Louis.

… Cedar Creek Resort centers around a replica of a weathered old Western town, complete with boardwalks, rail fences and wooden buildings that resemble a Hollywood movie set. Old-time signs — Wells Fargo & Co., Charlie’s Saloon and Tex’s Barber Shop — invoke visions of yesteryear. A covered wagon stands at the entrance to the village, which forms the heart of the resort.

While the feel is rustic and the oldest building on the property dates to 1860, amenities at Cedar Creek are 21st century. During the height of the pandemic, resort owners took advantage of the lull and made $3 million worth of improvements.

Why a Western outpost in Missouri wine country?

In 1953 Pat and Charles Vatterott, who had a St. Louis construction company, purchased the property for their large family — they had 17 children — and owned it until 1965. The Western town was built to entertain the kids and provided them with good memories of summers in the country.

With those happy days in mind, their son, John Vatterott, and his wife, Joan, purchased the land in 1978, bringing it back into the family. They have invested significantly in updating and restoring Cedar Creek while maintaining its historic character. Some of their children are involved in running the resort.

(All photographs are taken by me.)

I worked diligently Friday and Saturday putting together two rows of the “on point” “quilt as you go” blocks I decided to make. A friend whose mother passed away gave me the twenty-five patch quilt blocks,( tiny little 1 ¼” squares, something I would never do) and I’d always wanted to put them in some kind of quilt.

But as it sometimes happens, after I’d assembled the two rows, I decided I didn’t like it and spent Saturday night ripping out all the stitches.

Now I’m back home and back to square one as far as these quilt blocks are concerned. Who knows how long they’ll sit now before I decide what I want to do with them.