Some of you may have heard of The Thread House retreat. The Thread House  is a joint initiative between three prolific and very talented quilters here in the UK – Lynne Goldsworthy, Jo Avery and Karen Lewis. All of them are individually hugely influential in the modern quilting world and have teamed up as The Thread House to undertake a number of initiatives one of which is a retreat.

There will be many a UK quilter who has looked at blogs of their US cousins with some jealousy. Retreats seem much more common there than they are here.  In the U.K.  they are few and far between. But I’ve always fancied going on one and when the Thread House  advertised their first ever and it was within an easy journey of where I live it was a bit of a no-brainer. However technically I wasn’t there! It’s complicated.  But I had a great time ‘not being there ‘.

It was held at a fairly basic but very charming conference centre in the foreground below, set in beautiful countryside which meant some great walking on the doorstep (I’m a Fitbit fanatic). The sessions were really excellent and run by the trio. They are all amazingly talented and genuinely warm people that really made the weekend go with a swing.

But on top of that the thing that amazed me was the sheer talent of all my fellow quilters. We were doing things like screenprinting and lino printing as well as sewing and they were just such a very creative group – it was fantastic to see and of course put quilters together it’s a great mix.

 

There was a pouch swap. I made a double sided  Lola pouch using the free butterfly paper-based templates by Lilly Ella. I had won a scrap bag of Karen Lewis’ fabric and it was the perfect opportunity to show them off. That combined with some sparkly Essex linen made a good looking bag though I say it myself!!

In return  I had this wonderful travel pouch which Kerry had made. I had lusted after it when she blogged about it  and planned to make my own version but I was lucky enough to be the recipient. She made another zip bag and filled it with lots of goodies.  Did I say quilters are a generous bunch?

We also did badge swapping. Here are mine for Rachel. I made two as I wasn’t really happy with the first, not that I was ecstatic about the second one either!!

And in return I had this absolutely stunning badge made by Rebecca together with a very cute pin cushion gifted by one of my room mates Sam(antha). Wouldn’t like my mother to think I was involved in mixed room sharing…..

On the basis that I will go next time (although the tickets will go like hot cakes) and this time officially then I’m going to have to up my game when it comes to badge making. I think the problem was I was trying to make it small like a normal size conference badge but most were larger and more effective because of it.

I also made gifts for the three people I shared with and went to my trusty framed purses filled with Aurifil.

So to next time…. a chance to escape and create.  Watch out for the Thread House newsletter….

The pouch was a FAL Q1 2017 finish.