I’m back! I’m in utter chaos and exhausted, but I’m back and apologise for the blogging hiatus – yesterday I was rushing around all day getting life back on track and never made it anywhere near the computer!

There’s so much to tell that I hardly know where to start. But I will say that those of you who hummed and hawed and decided against coming to the FQ Retreat missed a real treat – and you have to come next year!! I apologise in advance to all those of you who didn’t go and are sick of reading about it!

It was a strange feeling heading off to the retreat because although I had never met any of the others attending, I really did feel that I was off on a jolly to catch up with my friends. That’s the joy of blogging I guess because we really did start off with a big lovefest of recognized faces with everyone studiously studying everyone else’s chests (name badges) and lots of hugging and shrieking. As you can see from this shot of the main hall we had lots of chances to hang out and get to know each other….and that’s probably what we spent most of our time doing!

We each got to take 4 classes spread over the two days. I started with Katy Jones’ Frame Purse class – which was great, but could have been a little longer. If you ever get a chance to take a class with the Ginger Monkey herself, do – she’s a delight and a super teacher….and I was fascinated by her tattoos!

Here’s what I made: (pretty cool, huh!)

I followed that with Wonky Log Cabins with John Adams and Freezer Paper Piecing with Kerry Green – in both of which I was so busy beavering away that I forgot to take any photos!

My final class was one that I was really looking forward to – Portholes with Lucie Summers. This is a technique I hadn’t seen before (why?) and although I had a vague idea what Lucie was up to, wasn’t quite sure and loved the overall effect. Here is Lucie (on the left) with her Portholes quilt, which won a first prize at the Festival of Quilts.

I loved this and had a real aha moment when I saw how it worked – it’s certainly a great way of making circles and I’m sure I’ll use it in the future!

The classes were really good, but were really only a small part of the whole – there was never a dull moment, with raffles (with zillions of amazing prizes), an iron man and a jelly roll challenge (neither of which I took part in – being somewhat of a lazy bum on such occasions….OK I confess, I just wanted more chatting time!), nice lunches, a sample swap ….where I think I lucked out, don’t you?,

an ugly fabric swap (where I actually ended up coming home with fabric that was even uglier than the stuff I took with me!), a trip to a quilt shop (Tikki in Kew) and two very nice dinners where I got to sit with the BritBee and Stitch Teasers and also the ex-pats who didn’t go right home at the end!

There were visits from Liberty, Oakshott Fabrics, and possibly the very best goodie bag ever too.

Ontop of all that there were also some really fabulous quilts around. How about this, belonging to Terri and made as part of the Brit Bee….

Or Cindy’s star quilt, which I honestly confess to having coveted intensely….

Best of all was meeting all my blogging friends – especially Quiltova who stayed at the B&B with me and who I really feel like I’ve known for years now (thanks Di for a fab weekend!). Susan, Claudia, Carol, Tanya, Moira, Elisabeth, Lush, Katy, Emily, Lucy, Sue, Linda, Leanne, Lynne, Nicky – and anyone else who I’ve accidentally left out – thank you so much for making it such a fabulous weekend….and Annabella, we missed you!

Congratulations to the FQ Team – Lynne, Brioni, Tascha, Katy and John for a hugely successful retreat – it was BRILLIANT – you did it! It was a winner! I’ll certainly be back next year!!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2012 at 8:53 am and is filed under Quilting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.