 (Left to Right) Jill Kerttula, Wrenn Slocum, Mary Beth Bellah, Lorie Hancock McCown, Lotta Helleberg, Jill Jensen  The first morning I randomly opened a Mary Oliver book of poetry, and this is what I saw. I belong to a wonderful group of fiber artists known as “Fiber Transformed” . How I got involved with this group is a story in and of itself, but that post will wait for another day. Thank you Kristin La Flamme. Meeting these women has been transformative. Each of us is constantly expanded because of our different approaches to both life and art. Friendships like this are a gift. We meet monthly to talk about life and art, but once a year we pack our cars to the hilt and hit the road. We rent a house on the beach of the Outer Banks of North Carolina for a week of uninterrupted creative sisterhood. The setup is simple. After rearranging the furniture and claiming our bedrooms, we each set up a station/table for our sewing machine and supplies in the great room. There is usually some type of dyeing station set up for indigo, rust, ice, cyanotype, or other experimentation. We have our own bedrooms and we are each responsible for dinner and clean-up for one of the nights. Most days are spent together, but apart. We each maintain our own schedule of creative work, beach walks, grocery or supply runs, or other divergent activities from whatever time we arise, until dinner is served. Dinner is communal and filled with family updates, opinions, technique ideas, what we did during the day, etc., etc. After dinner we might watch some TV (one year “Project Runway”, one year the Olympics, last year and this year “Ted Lasso”). Usually there is at least one machine still humming away and many knitting needles clicking during this. I just came home last night from our 2025 retreat. The weather was as expected… cold, wind, some rain, some sun, but still, many beach walks. Our only disappointment was that this was the first year we didn’t see any dolphins. However we did find starfish shells! By the end of the week, quilts were made, sweaters were knit, cyanotypes were exposed, an animal took shape, books were stitched, a shirt was sewn, and a loom joined us for the first time. There was even some blindfold stitching! Thanks also must go to our partners who are left home with dogs and duties, while we retreat.
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