Home Sweet Home… & Some FQ Retreat Deets…

Ppppphhhheeeewwww *sigh…
We are home safely from the UK…
Nothing quite like one’s own bed is there!
I have not moved far from mine all day…
Bliss.

Abbie & I arrived safely home last night (Tuesday) after 27 hours of fairly smooth travel.
Much to my relief Abbie travelled MUCH better on the way home…
She slept for about 7 hours straight right in the middle of the journey, so that made us both in good moods.
Never the less, smooth or not – it was still a long way home and we are now S.h.a.t.t.e.r.e.d!!
And jet lag with a baby is a b*&%$ – the flight may have gone well but there was a “party” at our house last night from 11.30pm-2.30am…
Lucky she’s cute!

All that being said I had the.best time away.
Really I should start at the beginning, but since it’s most fresh in my memory I’ll start with the retreat weekend:
And what a weekend it was!

Friday:

We (Abbie, my Mother-in-law & I) arrived in London on Friday lunch time by bus from the great lights of Norfolk. Bus was the perfect way to have a tour of all the city sites on the way to the Victoria bus station in a relaxed fashion I must say.
We were starving when we arrived so we made short work of dropping our bags with our hotel concierge and heading off to find some food.

Then a trip to Regent Street shops was in order…
We walked past and admired a bunch of very impressive shops, finally ending up at Hamley’s to treat my girls to some pressies.

How cool is the lego queen!

On Friday night I managed to get a hotel release pass from my parenting duties thanks to my very kind and obliging hotel-nanny/mother-in-law. So dinner & drinks were in order where I got to meet a bunch of my bloggy friends.
Followed by a trip fabric shopping where I could not keep my money in my pocket despite my best intentions…

These may have all come home with me from Tiki Patchwork…

I headed home early at 10pm (which I’ll have you know is already long past my usual evening home time – I live wildly!) to get a good nights sleep for the following day.
Just as well because my variable alarm went off at 4am! Hurumph – told you jetlag with a baby sucked!

The rest of the weekend passed far too quickly in a blur of meeting people, learning stuff in classes, meeting more people, learning more stuff in classes, laughing so much my belly hurt, eating and drinking too much at dinners, meeting more people and having a total blast.
Probably easier to tell the story in photos…

Classes:

I took 4 classes although only really managed to snap photos at 3 of them.
From top to bottom:

**  Lu’s Porthole’s class: That’s my porthole sample on the right that I made using the technique.
LOVED this class. Once I finally had the “ah HA” moment and got what Lu was talking about that is. I can be really dense sometimes!
**  Aneela’s Embroidery Class: Look at that cute little robin I embroidered. And that’s me & Laura-Jane proudly showing that WE are actually hand stitching something! Definitely worth photographing that one – Aneela really must be a great teacher if she could not only get me hand embroidering in the first place but actually FINISH it! And I confess I actually enjoyed the process. Although my brain had turned into a turnip by the end of the session.
**  Tacha’s English Paper Piecing class: Another hand sewing class & and I really really enjoyed this one too. How cool is my little hexie flower! (Mine’s on the right, Tacha’s sample’s on the left…) Tacha was a great teacher and I can’t wait to buy her awesome book!! (We got to preview her copy during the weekend).

I also took the Fat Quarterly Designer class but didn’t really take any photos or have anything to show for it. I think by that time Sunday afternoon my brain had given up on me for good and I just enjoyed having a chat with those around me in the class.

People:

I met sooooooo many people that I am scared to name them all should I accidentally miss anybody and make them sad… It was fantastic meeting old friends & new friends. {New as in never having had contact with them before the retreat, old as in I’d “met” before through blogs, swaps or bees etc… not old in age ;)}

Here are some of the faces behind the blogs that I had the pleasure of meeting…

Top left to bottom right:
Susan, Laura-Jane, Me & Fiona, Sarah, Hadley, The Royals popping in for a visit (aka the iron man challenge winners), Me Cindy & Laura, Me & Kerry,, Susan & Lynne, Terri, Katy & a bunch of other shoppers, Susan & Judith, Cindy, Katy, Trudi, Ceri


I would link to them all except for the small fact that my brain is in total disfunctional lala land and this post has so far already taken me about 5 hours through lack of focus *sigh… sorry ladies.

There were many many more that I met & didn’t get a chance to photograph. And sadly also just as many more that I knew were there but didn’t get to even speak to 🙁
With just over 100 people there it was kind of one of those mad weekends of half started & half finished conversations.

Goodies:

I was thoroughly spoilt for goodies over the weekend!
First up big thanks need to go to Sarah for my gorgeous name tag & accompanying embroidery.
Seriously how cool is that butterfly!! Thank you so much Sarah!

Secondly big thanks to my group in the sample swap who made me gorgeous samples & all the sponsors to the weekend. I came away feeling very lucky! (And with one incredibly bulging suitcase!!)

name tag swap, liberty bag (gift from liberty), Sample swap goodies, goodie bag, purchases from Tiki, hand delivered purchase from Fluffy Sheep Quilting, FQ swap fabric & free liberty samples

The end of the sweetness…
It was an unspeakably awesome weekend and I’m so blessed to have been able to go.
Between the intense concentration required of it in the classes & the overload of meeting fantastic friends, my brain is completely and utterly fried now.
I reckon I’m done for at least a good week of total uselessness now.
Seriously – don’t expect anything brilliant from me in a while please!

Massive thanks need to go to the entire FQ crew, all our teachers & the sponsors for the wonderful job they did organising & running the event. Guys it was just perfect & we’re really grateful for all your hard work and generosity!! Especially knowing you FQ guys did it all for love not profit!!
I hope you know how grateful we all are and how much we love you back!!

And finally – more massive thanks need to go to my amazing Mother-in-law…
Not only did she take time out of her busy schedule to chauffeur me around for the 10 days leading up to the trip, but she also was the most incredibly generous live-in nanny for Abbie for my retreat weekend, making it possible for me to even.go.
So for that I am truly grateful. Thank you so much Maia!

Check out my flick stream if you would like to see all the photos in big size & more that I haven’t shown here.
You can also check out other people’s posts over here at the kinky linky party.

Right. Now that I’m back, hopefully “normal” service will resume somewhat shortly.
Including more highlights from the rest of my trip.
After more sleep that is!!

Nighty night.