Longarm League's 2nd Annual Quilting Retreat

At the end of October we hosted our 2nd annual Longarm League retreat!

We retreated again at Heartland Retreat Center in Kansas City, MO. and had an amazing time. We had around 45 of us this year, mostly Longarm League members as well as a few other friends!

The whole retreat was so much fun - lots of laughter and chatting, but there was also an amazing amount of productivity. Each time we had a finish, the person would ring the bell so we could all celebrate with them. I’ve included just a few finishes in this post, but you can see them all on our Retreat Highlight on the League’s Instagram account.

Chris Batten of Looped Quilting with a fun Halloween Cabin Nights Quilt:

Nichole Ganoung of Paradise Flats Quilt Co. with an Archie quilt:

Jess with a Redford quilt:

The setting at Heartland works so well for our group - lots of space inside for sewing, and large grounds with trails for walks and other activities. This year we added a second room for our group with ironing and cutting stations, and this was a definite win as it gave us more space to move around in the sewing room and a chance to get up and stretch legs when going to cut or press. We’re definitely planning on two rooms going forward!

The weather was great on the first day, so we held a fun icebreaker outside:

We also added an extra day to the retreat this year, arriving Wednesday afternoon and leaving Sunday, which meant we had lots of time for sewing and connecting, but also time to visit local quilt shops, like League member Thalia Insco's shop Sew Enchanting Equine - definitely plan a stop here if you're in the area!

One of the other fun parts of retreat was that we had so many amazing products donated for giveaways this year. Here's a shot of part of our giveaway table, where attendees could enter their tickets for the items they were interested in winning:

Chrissy of Sew Lux Fabric donated a notepad and pencil for each attendee along with several other prizes for giveaway drawings, including this fun Nebula pattern:

Kai Scissors donated a pair of their 5130DC scissors with an accompanying lanyard for each attendee - so generous!

League member Lisa Lund of Shadow Valley quilts donated quilt patterns and a set of her fun quilty Christmas ornaments:

OESD donated a spool of Perfect Quilting Thread for each attendee as well as giveaway prizes including a $100 gift certificate to their online panto shop, thread packs and a couple punch needle kits:

Famoré donated four of their amazing new rotary cutters - these have ball bearings so are ergonomic and so wonderful to use!

Emily Dennis of Quilty Love donated several patterns:

Chris of Modern American Vintage donated one of his new double headed combo tools.

League member Meghan Morris of A Piece of Quiet Quilts donated a gift certificate for a quilt pattern from her online shop:

League member Jeana Culbert of Sugar Bee Quilts donated two of her Petal Pop patterns with accompanying Petal Pop acrylic template:

There were so many more great moments at retreat and we loved getting to connect in person with so many of our members and relax and sew together. It was awesome to see new connections and friendships forming and we hope our attendees had as wonderful of a time as we did!

All in all, it was another amazing retreat and we are already looking forward to next year! You can watch for info on next year's retreat on our retreat page; we'll be releasing 2026 dates soon.

And if you're interested in joining the League, whether you're starting your longarm quilting business, or wanting to improve your current business, check out our Rookie Season course! You can see all the details, read about how the course has helped previous students, and get started here.