Monday 4 June 2012

Home time

I got home this morning after two full days at the Fat Quarterly Retreat and it turns out I haven't taken nearly as many pictures as I thought so I will try to keep this brief.


We got to Baden-Powell House about 9 on saturday morning and had to start the day playing a version of bingo in which we had to talk to as many people as possible until we had successfully spoken to all 6 people on our assigned cards. I only managed to get about 2 of mine crossed off as I had too much fun chatting to the wrong people and didn't end up finding the rest on my list.

My first class on saturday morning was freezer paper piecing with Kerry, where I got to chatting with Lucy and Lorna, but I was still too excited about the whole event and forgot to take any photographs :(

Then after lunch with Lorna, Tanya and Cara, I went to embroidery with the very friendly, and only a little quiet, Aneela Hoey.


In the class we were given a copy of Aneela's sketch of a robin to practice with, i managed to finish my first robin but had only just started my second when the class had to finish as I had been having too much fun chatting to Caroline and Jo. I would love to learn more pretty stitches and this was a great start, see how pretty all the robins look together...


Terri brought her P51 quilt for us all to see, although some of the Brit Bees had seen it in its various stages as it was finished off, I hadn't seen it at all since I sent my blocks off last summer so it was great to see it all together.

After a huge Fat Quarterly raffle, I had drinks with the London Modern Quilt Guild, who put up with me until it was time for us to go to dinner, where we finished off the day with a Brit Bee + Friends dinner around the corner from Baden-Powell House where Judith, Shevvy, Tanya and I set the world to rights. After a day of light hearted small talk, it was a great contrast and I have a lot of respect for these fabulous women (quilting skills and brains; who could ask for more?!)

Sunday morning was the Designer Challenge with John in which I didn't take ANY photographs at all, and I have nothing to show for it as we all handed in our sketches, but you can take my word that there were some great designers in my class!

 I had a somewhat Brit Bee lunch with Ceri and Jo and learned a little about colour theory, before I went to sew portholes with Lu Summers (a class I had been waiting for all weekend!) It is such a fantastic technique that comes together really quickly once all the cutting is done- but that always takes me forever anyway; even cutting my 12" squares ready for the class the night before took me hours.


This class definitely made me want to make more and I would love to make a whole quilt of these (after I have finished all the others on my to-do list; namely my Curio and Brit Bee quilts, but it is definitely on the list)

At the end of the day the fat quarterly gang judged the 6 iron man quilts and our group won!

(left-right, team 2 are: Tracy, Sue, Emma, Lynda, Me and Teresa, unfortunately we could't find Nicole for the photograph) The granny square idea came from Sue, who has been making quite a few of these lately and started us off with the blocks.

It was a great weekend; it was lovely to put faces to the names of all those blog authors I have been following this year and I am so relieved that we were all wearing name tags! Thank you to everyone I was able to chat to, I don't think I have ever spoken to a nicer group of people who all felt like old friends by the end of the weekend. 

I'm off to unpack now and will share my retreat goodies and workshop bits and pieces later in the week, in the meantime I have a fair bit of blog reading to catch up on!

J x

20 comments:

  1. What a brill post - well done on the iron man quilt x

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well done on winnng the iron man.

    I love our chat over dinner - it was so unexpected to get so serious after such a buzzing day but it was a brilliant contrast.

    Really great meeting you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. So lovely to meet you, and well done on Your team winning the iron man. It was a worthy winner.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It was great to meet you, Jennie. What a weekend! And how nice we can all picture each other in the Brit Bee now, as well as all the others we met.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It was fantastic meeting you! I had such an amazing weekend - I've never laughed as much or met as many wonderful people

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your group's iron man quilt was amazing! It was so lovely to meet you Jennie x

    ReplyDelete
  7. Nicole was on her way to a plane when the Iron Man challenge was judged. Very happy we won, even though I only did some cutting, vague design suggestions and ironing (it was after all an IRON man challenge)...See you next year?!?!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Nicole had left to go to the airport unfortunately. It was lovely working with you.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi it was great to meet you in Portholes, it was a great class (and weekend) wasn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Excellent post Jennie - I was a bit slack on the photos too - so much else to do! xxx

    ReplyDelete
  11. Well done on winning the iron man. The embroidery class was great wasn't it? I've got the bug now think that robin will be the first of many...

    Don't think we got chance to meet, but maybe next time. They need to factor in my mingling time next time.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Congrats on the winning iron man quilt! It was lovely to meet you and have a good natter at lunch :)
    Cara aka (Pink Stitches}

    ReplyDelete
  13. I loved your Iron Man quilt, it was fab!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hi Jennie, it was lovely to meet you! and your Ironman quilt was awesome, a very deserving winner. now crack on with that bee quilt, I want to see it :) x

    ReplyDelete
  15. Fab to meet you and congrats on winning Iron Man. See you enxt year!!!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Jennie it was so lovely yo meet you! Well done on being a winning Iron man x

    ReplyDelete
  17. Was fab to meet you, and, err, you got more pics than me!

    ReplyDelete
  18. It was such a great time in London - I miss it already!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Just loved your group's Iron Man Quilt! Roll on 2013!

    ReplyDelete