Girl Get Away at Brian Head

"None of us can face life--it's ironies and surprises, it's challenges and barricades, it's tragedies and traumas--on our own. Nor should we be expected to do so. A belief in the brotherhood and sisterhood of all men and women follows naturally from a belief that God is the father of the human race. In many ways we are all in this together, and our common humanity runs much deeper than our similarity or differences in race, color, or creed." (From the book 'Holding Fast' by Robert Millet)

Last week I spent the week with 3 of my girl friends at Brian Head, Utah. We were adding up the years and figured we have been doing this girl get away together for around 13 years now. It's a week of emotional therapy for us to be able to leave the world behind and nurture each other. Of course we get a lot of quilting done, and prepare each other fabulous food, but those things almost seem incidental. We talk late into the night, and gain tremendous strength from each other. For me it's a very spiritual experience.

Me, Beth, Judi, and Ruth

Every year we pick a different location for our girl get away. When I lived up North we often went to Heber, or Park City. Now that I live in the Southern part of the state we sometimes head this direction. Last year it was Las Vegas. This year we picked Brian Head, a small ski resort near the city of Parowan.

The weather was beautiful, and we loved the fall colors. We took some wonderful walks each day.

Judi and Nedra

Judi and Ruth

Having an entire week to quilt without any interruptions was heavenly. I finished the binding on my "Round About" quilt.

I loved the design "Cinnamon Buns" by the long arm quilter.

While we were at Brian Head, my friend Ann stopped by. She has a cabin about a 5 minute walk from the resort.

Ann's cabin

A girl could get used to a place like this.

We stayed in a very nice room at the resort. Two bedrooms, both with fireplaces. We moved all the furniture aside so we could set up our sewing machines in the living room/ kitchen area.

OK- we make quite a "creative" mess as we work on our projects. But we always clean everything up and put things back in their proper places before we check out.

The resort had a very nice indoor pool area, complete with 2 large hot tubs, sauna's, fireplace and reading area. We spent most of our evenings swimming, and relaxing in the hot tubs.

"Are we going to be best friends forever?" asked Piglet. "Even longer" Pooh answered. ( from Winnie The Pooh)

Ruthie sewing away.

I finished my "Fun and Done" quilt

"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can be stupid with them." (Emerson)

Judi worked on several quilts, and discovered she forgot "parts" so she couldn't complete very many of them. We started to tease her about it. We then realized we each forgot "parts" to many of our projects too!

Beth started making a scrap quilt made of little squares she cut out of left over fabric.

All 3 of the other ladies brought lap tops to work on Digital Scrapbooking. Every night at 9:30 they gathered around Judi's laptop and listened to a "webinar" to further their computer skills. I was impressed. They kept reassuring me that once you get past the learning curve, it gets easier to do.

Bethie got the most scrapbook pages done.

Ruth made this cute advent calendar for one of her daughters. Each block is a pocket that can be filled with a treat for the 25 days leading up to Christmas.

I had so much fun making these Halloween potholders that I brought them the supplies so they each could do a "Make It and Take It" project.

Ruth made 5 potholders for her daughters.

Judi

Beth

I taught Judi how to make a "Fun and Done" quilt. This one is so beautiful in dark jewel tones.

"Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend." (Longfellow)

What do I get from my girlfriends? So much more than quilting. Sometimes I feel like an alien in this world. When I am with them I have come home to the "mother ship".

The time together went so quickly. We weren't ready to go back and face the real world again. But after a week we figured our families needed us home. Now we are counting down the time until we can get together next year.