Day 1 St Augustine

It was a beautiful day in SA. The sky was sunny and the temperatures were breezy and perfect.

We checked in to the campground on Wednesday and had a good night of rest. The Retreat didn't start until 4PM so we had the morning to relax and do whatever before heading to Jacksonville.

I wanted to look for a new pair of summer shoes, so we headed to the outlet mall to check it out. I did find 2 pair of cute shoes. 

 Afterwards, we headed for a lunch place. I had noticed on one of the RV forums that a great place to eat was O Steens on Anastasia Island, so we decided to check it out for lunch. This restaurant is cash only and no reservations accepted. It was a little hole in the wall and you walk up to the outside window and give your name. We had to wait about 30 minutes before our name was called which wasn't too long a wait.

 The food was fantastic. I had the fried shrimp, with 2 side vegetables and David had the scallops. Everything was delicious and we would definitely recommend this place.

When we got home and unboxed my shoes, Bentley staked his claim on the shoe box. It doesn't fit him, but it didn't matter--in he went anyway. He looks like he's saying, "What's wrong, MOM?" "Didn't you get this box for me?"

The Tea and Stitches retreat is held at the Herbert Center on the University of North Florida campus. I attended last Spring and had such a great time, I wanted to come back again. Most of the people are from Jacksonville, so many know each other, but they are all so nice and it's easy to meet new friends here. The project this retreat is centered around  Jan's new quilt Romantic Baskets. Her pattern hasn't been releashed yet, so we were the first to see it. It has 2 versions, one in red and one in blue, both with beautiful hand embroidery stitches adorning the baskets.

The workmanship is incredible. You just can't stop looking at it. As usual Jan, her sister Jo, Kathy and Natalie out did themselves on putting together this retreat which is full of prizes and surprises.

When we arrived there was a pretty personal name tag complete with silk flower and ribbon, a free pattern of Jan's Romancing Baskets, a bud vase with silk yellow flowers and a  paper yellow flowered vase with chocolate candy. Even our items list for anything we might want to purchase was adorned with red ribbon flowers.

Let the fun begin,

                                         

                At 5:00 we had dinner. A buffet of delicious pork, green beans almondine, potatoes, spinach salad and coconut cake. Yum!!! When we returned to the classroom there was a beautiful red box with a lacy ribbon and flowers at each of our places.

In opening the box we found a kit for making  a 6" pincushion that will be our practice work for the Romancing Baskets quilt. In the box was the basket template, several types of hand dyed  silk threads and floss in various colors, a book of embroidery stitches, batting, and belt canvas to finish the pin cushion.

We worked until 8:00 appliqueing our basket on one side of our pin cushion. and doing reverse applique on the other side.

It was so much fun, but a long day.

We were hoping to see Ryan and family tonight, but the kids both had fevers, so we decided to wait until tomorrow when they were feeling better.