Retreat run down part 2 - the classes

Here's the second installment of my trip to Fat Quarterly Retreat. In fairness it seems a bit daft to call it retreat as it was anything but relaxing! Don't get me wrong, it was fabulous, but totally exhausting. I could happily sleep for a week or two. Anyway, back to the run down.
Day one - First up - Hand quilting with Jen Kingwell. I was so excited about the prospect of meeting Jen as she is one of my biggest quilting idols! Unfortunately I missed over an hour of this class due to transport delays and was so hot and bothered by the time arrived that I didn't actually get to do much hand quilting. Fortunately for me I was lucky enough to have another class with Jen on the Saturday so a major tantrum was unnecessary ;) No photos to show for this class.
Second class - Embroidery with Jo Avery  - it was fantastic to finally meet Jo! We have known each other online for many years thanks to Flickr in the good old days when it was actually a thriving community. Jo was very patient and encouraging which was particularly helpful as our class was fairly high maintenance ;) This is as much as I managed to sew in class...

I predict this being finished some time in the next decade :)
Day 2 First class - Screen Printing with Karen Lewis - I was ridiculously excited about meeting Karen as we have been in constant email contact since a Flickr swap in 2010. Karen is even more fabulous in real life! Despite Karen's best efforts I am not a natural screen-printer, I'm blaming it on the early morning and vertigo. While the rest of my class mates churned out numerous perfect pieces I managed 2 semi-decent prints and gave it up as a bad job. Check out this post on Karen's blog to see what the other members of the group created :)

I do have Karen's awesome new book so I'm not saying never again...

Second class - Green Tea and Sweet Beans with Jen Kingwell - Jen is an amazing teacher! Her down-to-earth style is right up my street. It was an absolute privilege to witness a master at work. Jen was very generous with her expertise and we were all rapt.

I didn't get a great deal accomplished in class as I was too busy ogling Jen's quilts! Here's my sad effort...

...I do love it. I've promised myself I'll finish this quilt before I turn 60 ;) Here's Jen's original!

It's impossible to convey just how beautiful this is in real life but I did take a few close-ups to try and give you a better idea :)

Check out the tiny hand quilting stitches!

I was even lucky enough to see the Gypsy Wife quilt! Let me just tell you that it is so much more awesome in real life. The colours are far softer than they appear on the pattern cover. Kerry and I had a good fabric-porn session ogling all those yummy fabrics!

After all that excitement I was pretty much done in so I gave the Sunday classes a miss. The weekend was truly inspirational and I can't wait to have the energy to get creative again! I'm sure there are plenty of other things I should be telling you here but frankly I've run out steam. I am going to leave you with a giveaway! I've decided to share these lovely freebies with someone who didn't attend retreat.

For a chance to win these lovely goodies just leave the comment NOT AT RETREAT. I will draw a winner by random number generator if there are lots of you (or out of a hat if there a handful of you) on Saturday 26th July around 12 midday (BST). Catch you soon x

Home again - Retreat run down part 1 - the haul

It's been an exhausting but awesome weekend! After 3 years of trying I finally got to Fat Quarterly Retreat. It was lovely to meet lots of bloggy friends in real life. I was completely useless at photographing any of them, I did get lots of photos of fabric though :) Look at this lot! This lot was in the goody bag from the FQR 2014 sponsors. So generous!

 Then I won this fab stack of fabric from Dashwood studios in the FQR raffle!

Following the sensible decision to join the pub quiz team that Hadley was part of (we won obviously!) I had the pleasure of winning this awesome pattern by Jen Kingwell!

Fat Quarterly Retreat market night yielded many fabulous fabric finds. This selection of remnants from Beyond Fabrics ticked a lot of boxes...

...and this selection of Cotton and Steel prints from Eternal Maker put a smile on my face...

...I couldn't resist a few basics from Fluffy Sheep Quilting either.

Then I had the great joy of taking part in the Sample Swap and came home with these fab goodies in exchange for my aprons:

Blue mug rug from Sue Blake, Purple mug rug from Tsoniki, Nested Churndash from Sue Bone and the orange hexie pincushion and key fobs from Corrine.

So after all that fabric indulgence I'm completely whacked. I intend to be back tomorrow with more retreat news. Catch you soon x

Prepping

Well it's been a very busy time in this neck of the woods. I've been secret sewing, blog updating and website building.I've added some new content over at www.nelliesniceties.com so if you haven't already visited it might be a good time to check it out. I'd love to know what you think of the facelift so far! I'm going to try migrating this blog over to the website in the next few days so apologies in advance for any disruption. If it doesn't work out I'll just leave it here and add new posts here and on the website; me and technology are not the greatest of friends.

In amongst all this business I remembered that I'd signed up for this year's Fat Quarterly Retreat Sample Swap. Given that retreat starts next Friday it really was about time for me to get cracking on making my samples! I've been procrastinating as I really didn't know what to make, then this afternoon I had a light-bulb moment when I decided to make reversible aprons :) I dug out some pretty fabrics and set to work. They go together really quickly and I'm a little bit delighted with them. This is the first one that I've finished, I've just got to add apron ties to 3 more tomorrow. Front...

and back...

There's another one in theses fabrics and then another 2 that are the grey version of this Flea Market fancy print with a Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow print. I'm hoping that they won't be too offensive for whoever is in my swap group. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get on with finishing the other 3 aprons after I've been to the hairdressers to tame my crazy hair for retreat. I'm not sharing a picture here of me until that mess is remedied! Catch you soon x