Patchwork Improv piece from my week in Taos

Last week I went to the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, New Mexico for a creative retreat with 12 other women. This is the fifth year I’ve given myself the gift of this retreat. As I plan my weeks, run my business, and live my life, I look at my calendar and see this week blocked off in it ahead of me and just exhale. What was once just an interesting thing to do in the late summer/early fall in my newly adopted home of New Mexico, now feels like a reset that my internal rhythm seeks and dare I say, maybe even needs.

The first patchwork I sewed while at the Taos retreat.

We begin each day with breakfast served family style at a large table, then we gather in the log cabin room to do an official check in. Fran, our fantastic leader, keeps us inspired and starts us off each day with a poem. From there, we head to our shared studio space to begin our day of creating in our silent studio. Field trips are encouraged, and we rest when we need to throughout the day. Then we again gather in the dining room for dinner at the end of the day. Often most of us will head back to the studio afterward with a new burst of energy.

And we repeat that each day for a week.

Improv patchwork piece I did while in Taos, New Mexico

It is always a little bit of a puzzle deciding what I will bring with me to work on. I like bringing a combination of handwork and machine sewing work. This year, I had planned to bring all the supplies (sitting here right by my desk) to try dyeing embroidery floss, but at the last minute I changed my mind. That felt like a better project to work on here at home with access to things I might have forgotten otherwise. I settled on 2 projects from the Chicken Scratch book I am currently writing (I worked quite a bit on the bigger, more ambitious one).

I also brought 32 fat quarters and half yard cuts of my very favorite fabrics at the moment. I have made a real shift this year to using only the fabric that I truly love right then and I can see it changing how I approach all of my projects. But that is a deeper discussion, for another time. (Maybe a future YouTube video!) I started with cutting a 8-ish inch square from each of those fabrics. I create a very structured patchwork piece with some of those fabrics. Then I decided to make something with the smaller bits I had cut away to make another patchwork piece. From there, the bits got smaller and smaller, and I continued to play with how to keep using them until they were just too small. It was a fun exercise, one that made me appreciate how bringing those favorite fabrics really kept me engaged in sewing them up in a way that felt “invested”. Not necessarily in a “don’t want to waste a single bit” sort of way, but more in an “I love this, so why not put it with this other piece I love and see what happens” sort of way.

My Singer Featherweight, Tiffany, travels with me each year.

I always bring my Singer Featherweight on these retreats, and she always does such a good job for me.

Now I’m back home and feeling very inspired and renewed. I highly recommend taking yourself on a creative retreat of some kind. Even if you, like me, think “why do I need to leave home? I have everything I need here and a wonderful space to create in.” That week fills my creative well for an entire year.