Cindy Valentine has organized a very special retreat to occur February 10 - 13, of 2008, with the help of an amazing group of HIGHLY in demand needlework designers — in one of the most amazing cities in the world – New Orleans, Louisiana. One of Cindy’s goals is to help bring tourism back to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and with that in mind, she has organized a retreat which welcomes spouses to come along, too.
Patricia Bage of Patricia Ann Designs, Thea Dueck of Victoria Sampler, Janie Hubble of The Cat’s Whiskers Design Studio (all the way from Australia!), Catherine Strickler of Indigo Rose (I really wish this wonderful designer would step into 2007 and get a website! That’s a hint for anyone who is able to go to this retreat … ), and, of course, Cindy Valentine herself, will be the five extremely talented designers at this retreat, offering you one very mysterious, but very lovely project which they designed together!
This particular project will be a hollow box etui with five sides stitched in a New Orleans theme (but six sides total), and be filled with goodies. If you take a peek at Cindy’s website, you’ll get a fairly good idea of what four of the five stitched sides look like. The etui also comes with needlework smalls, one designed by each of the five fabulous designers especially for you, so there’s still a lot more mystery left! Don’t worry; I wouldn’t spoil all the good stuff for you — I’m here to tantalize and entreat, but you have to go to the actual retreat in New Orleans for the real thing. 
Included in your retreat price of $800 if sharing a room with another stitcher ($1100 for a single room, or $1100 to bring along your husband), you’ll stay for four comfortable nights at the Ambassador Hotel in the old Warehouse District of New Orleans. In fact, the Ambassador Hotel itself was once a coffee warehouse, and it’s also only a short three block walk to the French quarter! If your or your husband are lucky gamblers, a stop at Harrah’s Casino a block away may be worth your while to build both the stash fund and the any-other-kind-of-shopping fund in order to contribute toward Cindy’s goal of helping rejuvenate New Orleans tourism.
Ambassador Hotel rooms include in-room spa services, so you can even get that pedicure you’ve been wanting while you catch up on some stitching, or your hubby can get a massage prior to a nice afternoon nap before dinner while you surreptitiously slip out with the credit cards for some stash enhancement.
Or you can elect to stay elsewhere if that suits you better — and it might, as it means your retreat fee will be reduced to $550. However, I bet you’ll find it difficult to match the Ambassador Hotel’s price of $62.50 per night, especially when you’d also have to deal with additional daily transportation costs to the Ambassador Hotel for the retreat classes, and would most likely be paying for your own breakfast (which is included if staying at the Ambassador Hotel).
There will be plenty of opportunities for shopping, although since Cindy has designed this retreat to help the New Orleans area get back on its feet, some of those may not necessarily be needlework related — but I’m sure you’ll still love them! Cindy has promised a group outing to a New Orleans needlework store as well as the opportunity to buy direct from the designers (sort of trunk show style, but without the trunk show), too, so you’ll have oodles of opportunities for stash enhancement.
Make sure you save a few pennies, though, because Cindy also has a friend in New Orleans who is setting up an optional cooking class event at one of New Orleans’ finest restaurants. This would be at an additional cost, of course — but so worth it to be able to bring home a bit of New Orleans’ fine cooking to your own kitchen! Better yet, send your husband off to the cooking class while you put your feet up and stitch (or do a little shopping he doesn’t need to know about ), and then when you get back home, he can cook for you while you work on finishing your fabulous retreat project! It’s the gift that keeps on giving!
Don’t wait to sign up for this retrea! It is very, very limited with regard to the number of stitchers who can attend. As I write this, only seventeen sixteen fifteen spaces remain available.
You only need to pay $250 when you register, then half your retreat total (minus the $250 already paid for registration, that is) is due by September 15th, 2007, and final payment is due by November 30th, 2007.
Then you have a couple of months to save up spending money for while you are actually in New Orleans — and if you work out a deal with your husband that this is your holiday gift … or your holiday gift to each other if you both go on the retreat … it’s practically like SAVING money — and definitely like saving TIME — because you won’t have to fight traffic during the holiday shopping rush! 
Technorati Tags: needlework, cross stitch, retreat, Cindy Valentine, Catherine Strickler, Indigo Rose, Cat’s Whiskers Design Studio, Janie Hubble, New Orleans, Thea Dueck, Victoria Sampler, Patricia Bage, Patricia Ann Designs, etui, smalls, Ambassador Hotel
). The location needs to be within a four to six hour drive of most of the rest of the midwest to be “perfect,” and it must have a really good international airport. (Why international? Because we want the Stitching Jubilee to be able to bring us designers from other countries to teach classes, too, and because there are always a good-sized number of stitchers from around the world who manage to travel to an event such as this if they are provided with the requiremed means to do so; we certainly don’t want to leave those stitchers out because if they can afford to travel to this event, then they can probably also afford to spend money on classes and in the market to help make it a rousing success! 
