"In the Pink" Report

Sorry it has been a few days since the end of the Pink retreat, but things have been a tad busy since then. The last ladies left on Monday morning, and since then it has been cleanup time, and quilting time. And now I am 3 hours from home doing some Grandma duty for a few days. Consequently my blog report had to wait until I could sit down and concentrate. The little children are in bed, so now is the time. My camera did not come out too often on the weekend, so here is a brief update.

They all came "in the pink", and sorry I don't have more photos, but here is how one lady did it. A flower stitched on the pink jumper,.......

...... and matching flowers stitched onto the slippers.

And some pink socks!

It was not long before the first arrivals were settled into their stitching. Note, only one machine in sight.

I am sorry I did not take any photos of the other table retreaters, or what they were working on. Chris finished an amazing book cover, and Erica almost finished her last Mystery quilt. There were lots of bindings being done. But more importantly there was lots of conversation and catching up with each other's news since they had last met. Our sympathy went out to one of our retreating friends, whose 97 year old mother died on Friday.

There was lots of pink food to eat with a cuppa.

And one creative lady brought a delicious bottle of drink, which looked the part for a pink weekend!!

I had an enquiry about what I was doing about the pink food, so took the following photos. The first is a tuna pasta bake. I did think that the pasta would turn pink, if I added a fresh beetroot to the water in the saucepan when I boiled the pasta. But the pasta remained yellow. I then decided to add a jar of beetroot chutney and the cut up cooked beetroot to the pasta sauce, and you can see that this worked.

 An apple crumble was pink when I added frozen berries to the apples. And it was so yummy, that they wanted the leftovers for dessert the next night, which freed me from cooking another pink dessert!

 We had chicken burgers, with a beetroot/quinoa salad.

 And a banana split with strawberry topping was very simple, but yummy.

I took the easy way out for Saturday night dinner, and bought takeaway pizza, which we enjoyed with a pink drink.

Sunday lunch was cold meat, with salad, including a pink potato salad. And we even made life easier by using paper plates, so there was no washing up!!

I am so glad it was a pink weekend, as I can't even imagine cooking for a blue, or yellow, or even green weekend??

One of the highlights of the weekend is always the auction of all the donated goods, with the proceeds going to the Breast Cancer Network Australia. (BCNA). There is usually a raffle quilt as well, but this year has been busier than normal, so it did not get made. There was a good collection of goodies, as shown below.

We had some visitors who came for the auction, which made the bidding more interesting. We raised the grand total of $540, so thankyou to everyone who contributed in any way.

Take note of the 2 pink boxes, which were labelled as mystery parcels. These were bought by 2 ladies from our patchwork group, and had been donated by the lovely Faye.

Marie was the first to open hers, and was very pleased with all the goodies she received.

Michelle was next to open her box, ........ 

and received all the same goodies as Marie, but she found a "bonus" in her box! And if you have been reading my blog for awhile, you might have seen this "bonus" before!! It has been "going around" for awhile now, and somehow, I think it might be passed on again yet!?? But how, and when, is the question!

The weekend concluded with a special afternoon tea, when my grandma's special cups and saucers came out from the cupboard. It is not often that we sit for a cuppa and a chat with each other, and we should do it more often. All too often it's a mug of something swallowed on the run.

 I think it is time for bed, after a busy day, packing up and driving here. Then it was time to do the school pickup, and then one to dance, and one to guitar lesson. While they are at school for the next couple of days, I will be sitting here cutting fabric for quilt kits, and doing some more book work. Next week it will be back to Max again, but until then it will be some time with family, and a few days away. There might even be some more frequent blog posts, with more quilts to show, and a special announcement!

Blessings, From Jude