DW Retreat

My miserable excuse for the hiatus in blogging is I was so busy getting ready for it last week that I didn't have time, while I was still recovering from it the last few days. I SAID it was a miserable excuse.

Every year in September the Designing Women group holds a retreat at Banksia Springs in Dwellingup. This was our 8th year. We go down on Friday afternoon and come home on Sunday afternoon.

This is a view of the garden from the deck.

When we first started, we used to pay a tutor and cater for ourselves. Now we pay for a caterer and tutor ourselves. We think it is a much better balance! Shelley feeds us often and extremely well and we have a wealth of expertise in the group to demonstrate techniques.

This year the theme was "Strung out". We used flax to make a woven decorative piece, made string from fabric strips and knotted small string bags for treasures. We also constructed books under Alcira's direction. On Sunday, with Iris' input, we made all sorts of baskets, using a variety of materials. I demonstrated the machine made one and Alcira made this fabulous version.


We had a great time and I am already looking forward to next year. Except for Sunday the weather was good so we could go for walks. The ground was very squelchy though!