#meleenandcharlottesvermontgetaway (Hashtag Heaven)
February 8, 2014
Time seems to stand still in February. As often as I check the calendar, the dates never seem to progress. At work yesterday, I handed a letter back to my paralegal before signing it and told her the date was wrong. But it wasn't - it really was February 7th, but I thought it was at least the 18th!
So it was with great excitement that I found out that Charlotte Lyon's and Meleen's Dupreé's Vermont Getaway Art Retreat had a last minute cancellation and Charlotte invited me to come.
Look at the adorable room that was waiting for me to appear. Do you spy the "swag bag" on the green chair? It is filled with little hand-hooked and charming art goodies from the girls and their sponsors. Notice that the bed looks a little rumpled? That's because I had the best night's sleep there - I meant to ask Meleen for the name of the mattress!
The retreat is held in side-by-side houses built in the mid-1800's. Each house is charming and adorable and decorated with an amazing lifetime collection of farmhouse, rustic antiques that look perfect in the Vermont landscape.
The main project we worked on was to learn rug hooking. Look at the sweet work in progress by Jeanette of her dog. The craft tables were always filled with goodies and freebies and bits and bobs of art supplies, threads, yarns, and sweet photos to add to the paper journals we made the first night.
We also learned how to make felted goat soap. Tammy, an amazing woman, came to visit and brought her handmade goatsoaps and lots of dyed roving for us to wrap around the cakes and dip into hot and cold bowls of water. The soap was creamy and smelled beautiful and after 15 minutes, we had our own bars of felted soap.
Swing by her website at Wing and a Prayer Farm. It is a family farm that she pretty much runs by herself. I love her description of the farm:
"Wing and a Prayer Farm is a happy place to live and grow. We raise and care for a variety of poultry, Shetland Sheep, piggies, bunnies, horses and ponies, dairy goats and honeybees. Our farm, in the Green Mountain State, is a beautiful pastoral homestead where the children have grown up barefoot and the pups can run around without a leash!"
She also is a marvelous baker who supplied the retreat with probably 2 dozen pies and muffins each day. It was quite a treat to be watching the snowfall and eating strawberry rhubarb pie or "Peachin' to the Choir" (peach almond). She is researching selling her delicious and creatively named baked goods online, so check her site in the coming months. She is a dynamo of energy as a mother, wife, farmer, and animal caretaker. Her favorite month, she says, is April when the lambs are born. She usually doesn't get much sleep but is so excited that she doesn't notice!
My favorite part of the retreat was the meals (duh)! Meleen cooked 3 hot meals a day for 13 women over 3 days plus dinner on Thursday night. The food was rich, delicious, and served as smoothly, calmly, and enthusiastically as if she had run a restaurant her whole life.
As good as the meals were, the condiment that made them sing were the lovely, funny, bright, artistic, and crafty women who sat around the table. It always amazes me that when I go to an art retreat how quickly everyone relaxes into their best selves and shares their stories and love. I didn't know a soul besides Charlotte and Meleen but I feel that I made fast friends with all of them.
Thank you, Meleen and Charlotte, for a fantasy escape to midwinter Vermont, filled with quilts, wool, fabrics, hookers and strippers galore, book shopping, wood buying, treats and laughs, and even a covered bridge. Goodness - what more could you want out of 3 days away?