Za's Blog: NNC Craft Retreat 2015 – Day One of the Retreat (Part 2 of 4)

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

NNC Craft Retreat 2015 – Day One of the Retreat (Part 2 of 4)

I woke up as early as I would normally get up to go to work.

I wanted to get a head start in getting to Wiseed Meeting Center, at Merchant Square, where the venue of the Retreat is, as I needed to get things ready before the participants start coming in to register.

Sally and Margaret had promised to come early too to help out.

Sally arrived my house at slightly before 7.00am just as hubby was about to leave for work.

After a quick breakfast of homemade waffles (Yes! I actually made waffles the night before because I figured I wouldn’t have time to go out and have breakfast but needed to start my day right with a good breakfast!), we made our way to Merchant Square and arrived at the Meeting Center just as Radha and Margaret arrived.

We quickly got things organised, setting up the registration table, the ironing corner, cutting corner, and tools and materials corner, before setting up our own sewing machines, ready to start the Retreat!

We even had a table set up for tools and other materials which the participants might need in case they ran out or forgot to bring.

You can see some thread organisers I brought along to sell in case anyone was interested as I had some queries on them.

I also showcased the projects which we will be doing to give the participants an idea of the project in real life, as before this, they only saw photos I put up online.

I also made up some extra kits in case we might get some participants interested to buy extra kits to make on their own.

Soon all the other participant started coming in. Besides Sally, Margaret and Radha, we had Paul, Radha’s sister-in-law, Suseela, and my cousin-in-laws, Zuraidah and Zawiyah.

We were supposed to have 9 participants, but my cousin Ima and Sally’s friend, Alize, could not make it at the last minute due to some clash of schedule.

Class started punctually at 9.00am with an introduction of what is expected out of the class, what to expect and how I intended to run the class.

We went straight into the first project with the Etui Sewing Box.

This is a project that was mostly gluing and minimal sewing. In fact, only one item needed sewing. The rest was just gluing pieces together.

Seen here are Radha and Suseela.

Here are Margaret and Sally hard at work gluing the Etui pieces together.

I never thought about bringing a radio for some light background music, so the class fell silent as everyone focused on gluing the many pieces together.

Below are sisters Zuraidah and Zawiyah.

Our very own NNC member, Paul, hard at work.

We stopped for tea at about 11.00am before continuing again right up until lunch time at 1.00pm.

Everyone went according to their speed and level of skill. No rush.

When someone is slow, we wait awhile while he or she catches up.

When someone gets too eager to complete by going faster than the rest, I show him or her the next step first with those able to follow the same speed. If not, I just show the steps or instructions again.

I told everyone to get themselves comfortable. Most of us even went barefooted as the classroom was carpeted.

I am impressed with the facilities provided at the Wiseed Meeting Center. They gave us extensions wires at every table for our sewing machines when I told them we needed individual power supplies for our sewing machines.

Tea and lunch was served right on time at 11.00 and 1.00pm respectively as requested.

When it was time for me, Idah and Oyah to do our prayers, because we catered the tea and lunch from them, we had the use of part of the smaller meeting room for our lunch and a space to pray. I was most impressed when they even provided us with a sejadah!

I’ll definitely consider them again for future retreats or meetings, should I ever have a need for a big meeting place.

Except for the pincushion which we could not complete because I had forgotten to bring the poly fiberfill, everyone managed to complete the Etui before we broke for lunch.

Before we broke for lunch, I told everyone that as soon as they are done with lunch to start ironing their fabrics for the next class to avoid a long queue after lunch and waste precious time.

The 2^nd project for the Retreat was a Lotus Bag. It was mostly straight sewing.

Seen here is Zawiyah having a go sewing on my Janome.

Almost there, Zuraidah!

Sally is an expert in origami so this Lotus Bag was almost child’s play for her. She aced through the bag without waiting for the others! LOL! That’s my star student!