After Tish Rudd came to the Mount Saint Joseph Conference and Retreat Center with the Runaway Quilters, she had the idea to suggest her quilting friends at home visit Maple Mount as well.

“I know how wonderful they treat you here,” Rudd said Oct. 30, on the second of four days that the 18 Trigg County (Ky.) Quilting Club members had their first extended retreat at the Retreat Center.

The members were clearly happy to have the opportunity to spread out in Conference Room A and create their works of art.

“If you want to get away and get some quilting done, this is the place to come,” said Rose Marie Robbins. “You can feel the Spirit here. The grounds are beautiful.”

Robbins and Cathy Swinkowski were both working on spool quilts as they sat across from each other. “You just feel the calm here,” Swinkowski said.

Bev Hodge was working on a Fun and Done quilt, in which strips of fabric are sewn onto backing, and when the backing is sewn together, the quilt is done. She was having a ball at the Center.

“I love it here, it’s so peaceful and beautiful,” she said. “It’s nice to work so uninterrupted. I feel so free to do what I need to do.”

Dee Eggers was working on a Fun and Done that she planned to call New York Whirlwind. “I bought this fabric in New York several years ago and have been looking for something to make with it,” she said. Given that New York City was being attacked by Hurricane Sandy while she was quilting, the name seemed appropriate.

Pat Turner was working on a quilt for her 6-month-old great grandson, Turner Flick. Quilting is her pastime, but once a year she uses her skills as a dental assistant to travel to Nicaragua on a mission trip. She has made 16 trips to the impoverished nation, and each of the established churches there has a sewing class so the women can learn a skill to earn money.

“I’ve been a member of this quilting guild for 10 years,” Turner said. “These ladies have been so kind to help me gather sewing supplies for the sewing school.”

Joan Drake moved three years ago from Chicago to Trigg County, in the far western part of Kentucky on the Tennessee border, after her children bought property there. “The country is so beautiful here,” Drake said. Her quilting friends were trying to teach her how to “talk Kentucky” before she went home.

“Quilters are the nicest people,” she said, as she worked on a couple of quilts. “I don’t know what I’d do without quilting.”

Her neighbor, Bobbie Musick, has been quilting for 15 years. She has been to quilting workshops, but never to an extended quilting retreat like this one.

“It’s nice to be here, not have to watch the clock or take care of anybody else,” she said. When she’s among quilters, “No matter where you go, you feel like you’re among friends.”