The Weekend - Part I

Where to start, other than to say that the weekend was absolutely fabulous. Fabulous food. Fabulous weather. Fabulous classes. But most of all - fabulous people.

Marg drove down with Emma and me on Thursday. In typical fashion, as soon as we were far away enough from my house to not want to turn around I realised I hadn't packed any shoes. As I was wearing the hot weather school run sports sandals there wasn't a chance in hell I wanted to spend the whole weekend in them, so Thursday afternoon commenced with shoe shopping.

Despite many a comment made over the weekend, my forgetting the shoes was not deliberate, but it might be next time.

After shopping we was done we met up with Krista (my amazingly lovely roommate) and Leanne for dinner and then went to see a show - One Man, Two Guvnors. Excellent show that had us laughing all the way through.

Friday morning was free time so I tried to do more shopping and failed (I hand my head in shame). I consoled myself with sushi and then the retreat began.

After receiving our fab goodie bags (to be shown in another post), I proceeded straight to my first class in embroidery. It was fun. Obviously I am already comfortable doing embroidery but I was there with nice people and chatted to Jo and Sarah the whole time so happy me.

Afterwards we all met on the patio and the lady from Siblings Together came to collect all the quilts that were donated. Jo and Katy helped me finish sewing on the binding for Helen's quilt and I got to hand them in together. The charity are going to try and see that the mother daughter quilts go to two sisters which Helen and I think would be really nice. (Forgive the photos. The sun was so bright that the colours and washed away.)

Next on the agenda was a big group of us going out to dinner together. It was a great evening. So nice to see 38 quilters from different countries all gather together and just have a good time. There were people from the UK, Ireland, Canada, USA, Norway, Poland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Australia and -- if I've forgotten your country please forgive me.

I'm not even going to attempt to name everyone here.
If you have a specific query about who someone is please ask in the comments.

I managed to sneak me (and my cleavage) in there.

The troublemakers.
Ha!

Saturday morning was Improv with Lu. I was kind of tired and didn't really do what I was supposed to do, but I had fun. Hope Lu didn't mind too much. Then after lunch was English paper piecing with Katy. That was just a table full of women laughing hysterically and not getting much done, but having such a good time accomplishing little that we didn't care.

Next it was upstairs for the Sample Swap (I'll go into who I got to swap with and what I received in a different post), followed by the quiz which I was on the winning team. Nothing to do with me. I just sat there thinking 'How do they know all this?' the whole time.

The quiz quickly segued into the market evening at which I practised great restraint to keep in budget - but there was sooooo much good stuff you could have indulged in. This was followed by the raffle draw. I won a prize! I didn't take a photo though. Because I gave it to Leanne as I won foundation paper piecing paper. So not getting used round here.

By then it was late and I was hungry. A group of us wandered off to a Moroccan restaurant that had been recommended and had more fun talking, laughing and eating. You can't go wrong with good company and good food.

The winning team top left.
Me dancing bottom right.

Sunday was the final day and I did needle turn appliqué with Mandy. She's super nice and I know this because she had patterns for everyone but let me do clam shells, because I wanted to do clam shells. I like Mandy!

And then unfortunately it was time to come home. Because I had a cake to ice, and put fondant on and then docorate. Then I had a Y6 leavers disco to attend. The fun doesn't stop here.

All the children had photo mosaics to show them over the years.
As you can see, Emily has't changed. (*grin*)

And that's me, home and knackered. But I have a dance class to take a child to now so must scoot. More in future posts coming soon.

Susan