Fat Quarterly Retreat 2013: The Classes

First of all, the retreat was great. If you have been dithering about going, stop and book a ticket for next year as soon as possible. It is so much fun.

Friday morning I got ready to hop on an earlier train to London as I had been given a last minute ticket to the Liberty talk which had been organised by the Fat Quarterly Team. It was all about how the designers find inspiration for their beautiful fabrics. Sadly my train was really late and I arrived in London when the talk was almost over. Not a great start to the weekend but I wasn’t going to let this upset me and instead took a taxi to my hotel.

Waiting for the train

After dropping Edna and my bags at the Radisson I ambled over to the Baden-Powell House to meet up with lots of crafty and creative ladies and gentlemen. It was so much fun to see some ‘old’ friends and meet lots of new ones. Soon it was time for my first class, EPP curves. I didn’t get much done as I was having too much fun chatting with Di from Quiltova and Helen from runquiltknitwrite. However, I have taken all my bits and bobs out today and am hoping to finish this little block tonight.

EPP Curves

Friday evening was spent on the terrace chatting and looking at fabulous quilts. Delma from Siblings Together came to pick up the quilts that people had made for the charity. Because I’d been ill before the retreat I hadn’t managed to hand sew the binding onto the back of my quilt. So I sat on the terrace stitching like mad to get it finished. The lovely Jane (Teacupfaery on flickr) offered to help and I gratefully accepted. It was very much a last minute finish so I didn’t actually get to take a picture of it. If you’d like to see it finished there is a picture here in the Siblings Together group pool.

Basting

Saturday morning my first class was Improv with Lu Summers. I’ve been admiring her improv minis for ages and was incredibly excited about learning some of her techniques. I had so much fun (I think Lu is one of the funniest people on this planet) as I was sitting with some great people. I shared my sewing machine with Rachel from House of Pinhero who is such a nice, beautiful and generous person. I’ve been following her blog for quite a while as she makes the most wonderful clothes. She gave me lots of tips and I’m now really excited to start making my own well-fitting clothes. It’ll probably have to wait until after our move but that’s alright.

Improv Mini

I was under a bit of pressure to finish my improv mini as my next class was hand quilting with the lovely Mandy. Mandy’s hand pieced and quilted quilts are totally drool worthy. The one below is her version of the Green Tea and Sweet Beans quilt by Jen Kingwell of Amitié Textiles and I would have loved to discreetly stuff it into my bag. I brought some batting and backing for my mini so that I could hand quilt it in Mandy’s class. However, they were both too small as my mini ended up rectangular rather than square. I’ve decided to unpick the quilting again and start again with a bigger piece of batting and backing rather than cutting off some of the quilt. Watch this space.

Mandy's Quilt

My last class on Sunday morning was making a flexi pouch with Tacha Bruecher. I loved making the x and + blocks from tiny little pieces but got a bit stressed out by the fact that Edna doesn’t have a quarter inch foot. In the end I didn’t finish my pouch as the top was falling apart because I hadn’t backstitched properly. I might just take the whole thing apart again and fix it with the help of my Bernina. I still had lots of fun chatting (I think there might be a theme here) with the lovely ClaudiaAmy and blogless Helen.

Tiny x and + block

Right, those were my classes and they were all brilliant. I came home totally inspired and am already looking forward to next year. In the next blog post I’ll tell you all about the wonderful gifts I received and goodies I bought. TTFN!

Claudia and Elisabeth

 

Fat Quarterly Retreat 2012 – Part 2

Hello again! I meant to write this post earlier but Little Miss Bossy-Boots was very unwell an didn’t want to leave me for even one second. Poor Little Miss has tonsillitis. She’s getting better but refuses to take the antibiotics the doctor prescribed.

Anyway, back to the fantastic adventure the Fat Quarterly Retreat was. Saturday morning I got up and had a lovely breakfast with Amy who I met perchance in the breakfast room. Getting back to my room I was so excited that I went through all my stuff again just to make sure I had everything I needed before making my way to the Baden-Powell House. The Fat Quarterly team were sitting there, greeting us and giving us goodie bags.

Now, I don’t know if you have noticed that I made a name tag for Annabella for the name tag swap but never showed you the one I received? That’s because I didn’t get mine till Saturday morning and my swap partner was  the uber-talented Tacha! Can you imagine how excited I was? Luckily for everyone at the Baden-Powell House I had lost my voice that morning so nobody heard the deafening squeal that was (not) coming out of my mouth.

I also got a sticker with my name on and a Bingo card with six names of attendees which I had to find and get to sign my card. Great little ice-breaker. I have to admit that I haven’t looked at that many female chests ever before. I found my six girls in the end but chatted with at least another 5o in the process and got to meet some really lovely people.

After a nice cup of tea and some biscuits I went to my first class which was frame purses with Katy. The sewing bit went really quickly, Katy explained everything beautifully, and I was very pleased with the look. However we didn’t have time to finish off our frame purses as it was time for lunch. Katy told us to grab her after our next class and she would show us how to glue the frame onto the purse. We did and it was really quick and easy although I managed to get mine a bit wonky. No reflection on Katy’s teaching skills but rather on my non-existent multitasking skills as I was trying to glue my frame and sew for the ironman challenge at the same time.

After lunch, where I got a platter of food especially prepared for me as I’m garlic and olive oil intolerant (I know, I know. Very sad), I headed upstairs  for the sample swap. I had seen so many gorgeous things on Flickr and was a bit nervous that my pouches wouldn’t be good enough. I think they were well received by my swap partners Teresa, Nicky, Emily and Di.

I absolutely adore the gifts I received. When I was taking the pictures Charlie insisted on being in it as well. I’m a softie so I let him sit on my sewing table and stay in the picture..

After the swap I grabbed my sewing machine to take Lynne’s class on paper-pieced pillows. I’m a complete beginner and in my ignorance chose the double circle of flying geese which is not a beginner’s piece. With Lynne’s encouragement I went ahead anyway and managed to almost finish one quarter of it. Sorry about the wrinkles; I took the pictures while unpacking.

Paper-piecing seems to be like marmite, you either hate it or love it. I loved it although the concentration I had to put in meant I stopped breathing for the entire class.

Afterwards I met up with the others from my Ironman group, Amy, Lucy, Muriel, Ruth and Tammy (have I forgotten someone? If I have please forgive me). We got some Savannah Bop by Thomas Knauer to play with. As a novice in quilting I didn’t really say much during the design stage but once the sewing started I did my bit. We didn’t manage to finish that night so when I came back Sunday morning I continued sewing on the sashing. I’ll show you the finished quilt top in the next post.

Although there was more fun to be had with a pub quiz I had to give up and go to bed.