FQR weekend wrap up

Well.  I'm home.  Home from the Fat Quarterly Retreat held by the Fat Quarterly team of amazing people!!  The gang was made up of John, Brioni, Tacha, Lynne and Katy.  I'm linking up to the Kinky Party (as Lynne called it)!!

I actually got home Sunday evening but half an hour after I got in I fell asleep and had a nap...  a long nap on the couch.... 2 hours or so later I got up (I obviously just needed to re-boot my brain after the most wonderful, intense, fantastic and amazing weekend ever!) and finally shared the weekend with dear Mr Crafty Shenanigans - the stuff he didn't hear about in the car on the way home that is!  Yup - he drove into London to collect me from the hotel - how sweet is that!!?  The perfect conclusion to the weekend I'd say.

Friday was the beginning of my weekend at the lovely TIKKI in the Kew Gardens area of London.  I managed to spend my 'allowance' (and then some) on some gorgeous and unique fabrics and haberdashery.  Yay! We were a group of 12 who then went and had supper at Ask near the hotel.  Trash and I sat beside each other at supper and she is now my kindred spirit (or 'twinie')!  Hello to Jersey Sue and Claudia too and everyone else I met that night - so nice to meet you!!

Saturday.  Well what a day.  Thank you Ruth for the cute little LMQG badge - a great start to the exciting day ahead!!  Once registered, we had to find people whose names were on a card to then get them to sign it when we met them - what a clever idea!!  Great ice breaker - whoever thought of that needs a great big hug!!

Registration desk and goodie bag collection - woohoo!!!

Introductions made and welcome message given, I then went to my first class:  Portholes with Lucie Summers.  What a brilliant class and the 'ah-ha' moment was truly inspirational!  Thanks for that Lucie!!  I am a circle convert!  I finished one full square with my portholes and hope to make a wall hanging with a few more :)  The possibilities are endless - what a brilliant technique!

Saturday afternoon I did the Zippered pouch class with Claudia and made this amazing pouch (which conveniently holds my rotary cutter, scissors, lots of thread and bobbins and even my Zakka sewing kit!).  This is the second zipper I've put in and I am very happy with how it turned out - yay again!!!  It's looking very Jubilee weekend, wouldn't you say?!!

Bought this fabric before the Royal Mail put the stamp prices up!! haha

Saturday lunchtime was the Sample Swap on the terrace.  This was so much fun - the 'lottery' of seeing what you get to take home plus meeting the good folks who made them!!  Our group gave a great selection of samples - crayola pencil case, selvage brooch, London baggie, pouch with big button and embroidered animals.  Thank you to Trash for organising it all too - fab job :)

Saturday night I flitted between the bar area to sit and eat pizza and giggle with the London Modern Quilt Guild, did the 'Pub Quiz' [thanks Lucie - couldn't have won without you - hahaha!!!], and worked on the Iron Man quilt in the main hall.  Our group was made up of Ruth, Elisabeth, Muriel, Tammy, me, and I'm sure I missed a couple others.  We foolishly didn't manage a group picture all together with the combined effort - but this is understandable with all the other things that were going on!  The quilt top was sewn up by the end of lunch time Sunday - phew!  Looked great girls! 

Group 5 - we used Thomas Knauer Savanna Bop fabrics (big yellow quilt).  Our quilt top was
considerably larger than the rest.  I learned a neat way to do triangles too - thanks for that top tip!!

Sunday morning I attempted a Union Jack pillow with Lynn but struggled, I will admit!!  Perhaps I was too excited, and perhaps a wee bit too tired for the concentration that was required?  I will add it to my WiP list and aim to get it done soon!  Kelly got all four of her squares done [jealous].  A pillow I will make (says Yoda)... eventually!!

And then Sunday afternoon was the Wonky Log Cabin class with Quilt Dad John.  This was the class I was looking forward to the most because I am a wonky kind of gal and I adore Quilt Dad - and to have it as the last class of the weekend was such a great weekend wrap up for me - yay!!  Here I am with John and our blocks!!  

And then to finish the weekend up we all made our way back to the main hall for more prizes and giveaways!  I won the Shape Workshop for Quilters book - YAY!  Here is a picture of the goodie bag, a few giveaways and the prizes I won:

So very generous - Aurifil, Oakshott, Liberty, Pfaff and so much more - thank
you to all the sponsors of the weekend!!!   Your generosity made it truly amazing!

 
And to top it all off, Hadley from Flying Blind on a Rocket Cycle gave me my prize that I won on Giveaway Day/Week too - how cool is that?  She made the most beautiful pouch, needle book and pin cushion and there were two Cath Kidson sewing booklets and some co-ordinating Cath Kidson tissues (kleenex for us North Americans) too.

I am so very lucky to have won such a lovely (and so professionally sewn) gift/prize!  Thank you Hadley and it was sooo great to meet you!!!

So, to finish off my 'report' and wrap up the most amazing weekend, here are some of my favourite photos! 

Thank you once again EVERYONE for making it such a special weekend.  See you all again next year!!!

Postage stamp zippered pouch linked to: