Hi Honey, I'm home...

Yep, home from Retreat and still trying to get it all out of my buzzing head and into some sort of order!

Firstly, trying to blog from my phone over the weekend was a bit of a fat-finger struggle, and that was when I wasn't so engrossed and blogging was the last thing on my mind.  So apologies it wasn't more, and thank you now for your comments - they were even harder to access, but much appreciated.

Secondly, the District Nurse has been to see me this morning, (for those who don't know - I had a bit of a mishap with the kettle and my forearm on Friday afternoon, perfect timing eh?), it looks and feels really horrible now, going to take ages to heal, nice big scar, and without the Retreat adrenalin I am starting to feel a bit upset and sorry for myself, so thank you for caring xxx

Anyhow, there are lots of posts going up already about the most amazing sewing weekend we have just had, so I don't expect this will be the first, or last you will have read, so apologies if you are bored already, (because I will probably be able to string this out over the whole week if I try), but if you want to see more, here we go, my Retreat overview...

It all started when I met my new/old friend Nicky on the train up to London just after 7am; she only lives about 15 miles from me, but we had never met before; and as was to prove true all weekend, it really was just like meeting old friends you'd not seen in a long time, when in fact for most of us we had never met at all - really quite surreal.

We were joined by Fiona at Victoria Station and got a cosy cab to Baden Powell House, chatting all the time like the old mates we are.

Fat Quarterly Crew were there waiting - I will say now that they all, Lynne, Katy, Brioni, Tacha and John, along with Kerry, Aneela, Lucie, Claudia and any of the other teachers and organizers, are the most awesome and inspiring bunch that you are likely to meet, and I can't thank them enough for the Retreat itself or the camaraderie and friendships the Retreat has created.  There was definitely a lot of joy for the ones who were there and lots of mention of our friends around the world who couldn't make it - there should have been a lot of quilty ears burning this weekend!

After the most manic hour imaginable, think 100 women and 2 (poor) men, all shrieking and hugging and talking at once, classes began.

Now you may have noticed my camera-shyness, so I didn't put others through the pain of the 'enforced hurry-up-and-press-the-button smile', unlike some - you know who you are!, so most of my pictures were more crowd shots.  I didn't take that many, and many of those were blurry, but I am so glad that others are already sharing theirs, so I will be favouriting many of those on flickr over the coming days I hope.

So, I took freezer paper piecing with Kerry first - I loved it - not so sure my attempts did her skills and instruction justice; it should be noted that for all classes, what would normally take about half an hour at home took about three times as long - I just can't do sewing and chattering, and hey, I can sew alone any old time right?!

After an intense meet-shriek-and try-to-eat lunch hour, including the brilliant goodie swap, I had the joy of a refreshing few hours embroidering in Aneela's class.  Now Aneela is a quiet sort, but don't be fooled by her beautiful gentle designs and soft voice, she is in fact evil with her iPad and if she's not careful I don't think I will let her be my friend any more!

Now please remember that although there were moments of calm, much of the non-class time was spent, for me, and I suspect many others, flitting between groups of people, never really getting to sit for a long chat, trying not to miss a thing. 

There was an amazingly generous raffle, Iron Women, fugly swapping and goodie bags and so much more, topping off Day One with a Brit Bee & Friends dinner.  By which point I was so exhausted from my 5.30am start that my conversational skills were that of a 2 year old.

I had a comfortable night in my lovely hotel room, and Sunday started bright and early with Lynne's Paper-piecing class; I will sum that up as 'much hilarity' and the start of something lovely.

Lunch was a rather calmer affair, followed by a fantastic frame purse session with The Tattooed Quilter (as seen on Channel4 - we so wish), I loved this class, and it was the perfect finish to my 'formal' time.

There was more chatting, photocalls and giveaways, challenge judging and general milling about before we headed out into the rain and mayhem of 20 million Jubilee celebrators(?) just after 5pm.

Now I have deliberately not name-checked all the amazing people I was lucky enough to have spent time with this weekend - because you know who you are and I would be so embarrassed if I forgot to mention anyone, because everyone was great, and also I am now already thinking of the people who I intended to spend a bit of time with and completely didn't - doh!

Well this has already turned out way longer than I was expecting, so tomorrow I will show you the things I made, and Wednesday maybe the other things I came home with, if that's OK.

I will now be trying hard to catch up with everyone else's posts and photos too and maybe putting some of my new skills into practice.  I need to cram in a Jubilee street party and some family time over the long bank holiday and maybe some sleep at some point, because I definitely need some more of that!
xxx