Back to Porridge!

Actually my porridge this morning with fresh raspberries and blueberries was delicious!  In fact, do you want to see the first wee harvest from my garden?

Well my weekend away at the Fat Quarterly Retreat in London was brill!

It's very hard to cover a whole weekend of activity and inspiration in one or two posts, but I'll try and give you the highlights!



Retreat is a packed weekend of chatting, workshops, shopping, chatting, eating and more chatting!!  (This year there was also a lot of sweating - eughhh!)

When you arrive at the Baden Powel Conference Centre you get a gorgeous goody bag filled with fabrics, threads and lots of other useful stuff.  Here is a pic of the fabrics that were in my bag.

I was straight into my first workshop - PJ pants with Kerry.  Alas I got side-tracked chatting with a friend and didn't get my pjs finished, but I will post you a pic when I do. 

Friday evening on the terrace was 'Show and Tell' and also the Siblings Together quilts were handed over en masse! Here is just a few I managed to photograph.

Here is Sarah handing over the Bee Blessed donated quilts to Delma from Siblings Together.



On Friday night we enjoyed a meal out with lots of bloggy friends, but it was sooooooo hot and sticky.  We all flaked out back at our hotel room afterwards!

Sarah and Rachel drooling browsing!

On Saturday I got the chance to visit a shop that sells Liberty fabrics and offcuts! What a feast for the eyes!  I bought some smaller pieces and also a metre of Liberty needle-cord to transform into a winter skirt (one day!).

And then on the Saturday evening, there was Quilt Market - where traders and quilters got the opportunity to set up their stall and sell their wares!  I bought some fqs (see above right).

Sunday I was meant to be making a flex frame pouch, but not enough sewing machines meant I got to drink coffee and chat some more with mates and catch up amidst all the flurry of creative activity!

I even got time to nip across the road to the V&A Museum shop!  Wow!  This was a first for me and having a day to go around the museum proper is definitely on my bucket list!

Glass sculpture at the V&A shop!

As always the main highlight for me was meeting up with friends, old and new, who I have had the privilege of getting to know via this amazing online quilting community.

I think that's enough photos to keep you going! But if you want to see more, go to my flickr page here.

Thank you to everyone who spoiled me rotten over the weekend, and made it a really special time for me. And thank you Fat Quarterly Team for another brilliant retreat!

I've still to show you my secret sewing project no.4 which was handed over at the weekend!  But I'll leave that for another day!

Jxo