Wednesday, November 2, 2016

My beading life - THE Colorado Bead Retreat

I used all capital letters for THE in the title because this retreat is the best ever!  I knew it would be fantastic.  Attendance requires that you have gone before to get "in" or be lucky enough to be selected for one of the few lottery slots.  Betcey Ventrella of Beyond Beadery and her fantastic staff set the gold standard for treating beaders to a combination of a great atmosphere, food, shopping, pampering, goodies, and fantastic teachers. 

The pendant swap and desert social Thursday evening was a great kick off.  I've never seen such a fantastic collection of pendants.  Most, if not all, were bead embroidery.  The pretty sparkling pendant I received was made by Janis Starkey.  The donut used is labadorite which is stunning.
The flowing chocolate fountain during the social was a tempting display as were all the other goodies.  The event was a spectacular kick off for what was to come.  When I returned to my room, I found a goodie bag filled with all kinds of wonderful treasures from all over.  The sponsors of the event really provided some amazing items for everyone.

The classes were all perfection.  I loved them all.  I really enjoyed that they were all bead embroidery with such wonderful teachers.  For me the bead embroidery really set this retreat apart from the growing number of bead retreats all over the country.

Heidi Kummli's pendant is fantastic.  It was so much fun to see how it came together and it was the first project I wore outside of the event.  It is reversible and a such a really nice piece of engineering.  Her colors selected for the 3 kit options were all fantastic.
 

Sherry Serafini's cuff was also great fun to make and I've worn it already to the Il Divo concert in Clearwater, FL.  It was a fun piece to wear to such an outstanding event.
Finally, my project with Kinga Nichols is finished as well.  This spectacular cuff was fun to do, I loved making the bridges.  It took longer but was well worth the time.  I love it.
And for me, nothing tops being in Colorado with the mountains.  The group was warm and friendly and I felt welcomed to the event.  I was thrilled with the special 'Wolf" meeting and talk.  And as you can see, the 'wolf' meeting was popular with many at the retreat.
I was very lucky during the drawing for the prizes associated with the tickets for the Wolf charity.  I won a beautiful Laura Mears moth.  What a wonderful bonus for the weekend.  I look forward to making a bead embroidery pendant or necklace to feature this piece of art.
I've always love Colorado and the opportunity to bead and just to be there, was an event I'm glad to have attended.