Craft Retreat

Hello and welcome to a crafty Saturday, here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is March 29th and I'm coming to you live from Bangor, WI.

No, not Bangor, Maine, nor Bangor, Pennsylvania, but the Bangor in Wisconsin, just east of LaCrosse, on a craft retreat at the Dragonfly Retreat house.

How does a girl from Wannaska land at a crafting retreat in southern Wisconsin? She makes a promise.

"When you said you would go, I didn't really believe you would," my friend admitted when I got to her house Thursday evening. I didn't take offense, after all, it was this time a year ago when I declared that I'd road trip with her to her annual craft retreat in 2025.

Craft Retreat is sacred, according to my friend Carol. "What happens at craft retreat, stays at craft retreat." But there are a few details I can share with the general public before diving back into my creative endeavors for the weekend.

"Craft Retreat started over 20 years ago," Trudy (Carol's cousin) recounts, when Trudy's daughter and niece set up shop for a little crafty R&R in a hotel room in Madison, Wisconsin, in the 1990s. Since then, the participants and locations have varied over the years, but the spirit of Craft Retreat has stayed the same.

The purpose of Craft Retreat is to step into some time and space outside of one's regular life to get industrious - to crank out some serious productivity - in a short amount of time.

Craft Retreat is also about fellowship; gathering to steep one's bones in the creative collective. The energy is bright and zingy, as the ladies zip fabrics through their Singers. The whirring hum of sewing machines welcomes me into their folds. I plunk down right in the middle of it with my laptop, inspired by their zeal and grounded steadfastness of craft.

It's like the ladies are enjoying themselves in a bubbly hot tub of togetherness, sipping their Riesling and enjoying their shared snacks from the snack table, I feel their welcome and step into the warm waters.

There's an air of whimsy in their dogged determination to stay the course with their output. I find the contrast a delicious dichotomy that comforts and reassures as I pick up my pen or knitting needles and join them, merging my creative efforts with theirs. A melding of productivity, presence, and people.

My analogies feel all over the place, yet I can't help myself. I chalk it up to the heady euphoria of Craft Retreat. I feel tipsy with gratitude and happiness for this space and time to hold contradictions and craft them together.

Despite my joyful stupor, I see something with profound clarity: the phrase "Craft Retreat" perfectly embraces the cosmic collision of quilts and spas - a retreat in the best sense of the word.