Quilters Retreat at Rydal Hall...

Feeling ill prepared, I stayed up until the early hours updating my PowerPoint presentation last Saturday night ready for my talk at Rydal Hall. I was still up early packing quilts and sundries last Sunday morning and as Linzi was delayed thought I would clean the car hoping that the Swallows would soon leave for warmer climates.  I love to see the swallows arrive early summer but am so pleased to see them leave, they make so much mess on my house, car and windows.

As usual I probably took too much 'stuff' but with Linzi's help we managed to pack it all into Linzi's Landrover and left my home for the short two hour journey to the Lake District. We had supper of fish, chips and mushy peas by Lake Windermere before arriving at our hotel for our six night stay.

The Hall was dimly lit and quiet with a skeleton staff, luckily we were escorted to our room by one of the groundsmen else I'm sure we would never have found it, we did find an easier route ourselves the next morning. I admit to feeling a little uneasy on our first night, I did wonder why when morning broke as I found my bearings and realised that Rydal Hall is so peaceful and picturesque.  The views from the house are stunning, the weather for the whole week could not have been better, we slept with the windows wide open every night.

We quickly set up the sewing room ready for our guests who arrived on Monday afternoon. After our first dinner together we drifted into the sewing room and started on our projects that very night.

Linzi doing a demo for the Rev...erand

Sewers admiring Ani's special quilts

My small Demo piece just needing some binding

Ani, Linzi and I gave demonstrations and then evening talks to 'sewers', visitors and hotel guests. We left a wonderful display of quilts hanging in the drawing room all week, we could often see hotel staff and guests wandering in to admire our handy work.

Linzi admiring felted jewellery

The Art Yurt was a must see, where the Resident Artist was spinning Hedrwick fleece straight from the sheep.

A trip to Derwent Pencils and the Pencil Museum could not be missed as it was only a few miles away, so along with seven of our sewers we excitedly drove along the edge of the Rydal Water, Grasmere and Derwent Water on our way to Keswick.
We toured the small museum and were told about graphite, black gold and how indeed graphite was worth more than gold at one point. There were displays of nibs and pencils which reminded of quilts, it's a wonderful place to visit, I'm sure I'll be back again soon.

Our Ladies worked really hard on there personal projects, some Husbands went off walking in the hills and who could blame them, this is a stunning part of the country. I've been here many times as a child and many times with my young family, it's been a while and I had forgotten how beautiful the Lake District is!

A group photo on our last morning in the drawing room....

After our guests had left we packed everything into the vehicles and drove to Townend Farm, a National Trust Property

Lots of intricately carved furniture

Before we knew it it was Saturday and time to leave, time flies when your having fun!

Around the World Blog Hop

Hi, it's Monday and it's my turn to share on the Around the World Blog Hop. 

My very dear friend Michelle 0f MMMQuilts  invited me to join the Hop last week. Every Monday, a new group of bloggers will share a little about themselves, and feature a few other bloggers who will post the following Monday. 
Although Michelle and I live many miles apart, Michelle in Canada and myself in Scotland we have been internet friends for many years. Michelle and I both started our quilting lives using 9" machines then progressed onto true longarms. We followed each others progress for a long time until in October 2013 we actually met at a quilt show in the USA, MQX, (Machine Quilter Exposition), Portland, Oregon. That was a fun trip!

Well, this week I'm getting organised for a Quilting Retreat in The Lake District in England....fun, fun, fun....

This is the gang...

This will be our venue for the week....

It's a tough life huh????

1. What am I working on? 
I have scheduled this blog post beforehand, next week I hope to work on a bed quilt using retro fabrics so this week, I am cutting fabric,  it remains to be seen if that comes to fruition, best laid plans and all that...

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre? 
Although this week I am preparing for a retreat my usual work is longarm quilting. I love, love, love custom quilting and am lucky enough to have a few customers who allow me free rein on their quilts. It's sometimes hard to give back a quilt to it's true owner but the pleasure I see in their faces is wonderful.

3. Why do I write/create what I do? 
Although I work for customers as a longarm quilter, I do this work as I am passionate about quilting......

4. How does my writing/creating process work?
I do have customers who require edge to edge or pantograph designs on their quilt tops but my passion is custom quilting.  When I load a custom quilt onto my longarm machine I never really know how I am going to quilt it, it's fun to follow this esoteric process.  The quilt just finished is always my favourite.....


Before I go, I want to let you know of two other bloggers who will be sharing their posts next Monday. 

Julie of  Heritage Keepsakes ....Julie is a longarm quilter living and working in Australia, we have been internet friends for a while using the same APQS longarm machines. We are lucky to have met each other twice, once in Portland, Oregon and then just a few weeks ago here in the UK at Festival of Quilts, in Birmingham, UK.
Lynette of What a Hoot blogspot.....Lynette is a prolific quilter, can you believe that Lynette sent a quilt top all the way from Colarado, US to me here in Scotland, UK for me to quilt for her Dragonfly Party 2 .....

Roberton Show.....

This week is flying by, before going any further I need to post about my exhibition at Roberton Show last weekend.

I was asked to display and demonstrate quilting. It's a bit difficult, in a tent in the middle of a field to demonstrate quilting, so instead I opted to do a little piecing on my wonderful Singer hand crank machines. I had been a little anxious in case the field was wet and muddy for displaying my precious quilts.  I was really relieved that the rain blew away overnight to reveal a wonderful sunny day.

I love this photo taken on my iphone....not photoshopped at all except to add my logo....

I shared a tent with the Ladies selling local produce and raffle tickets for the tombola. I'm sure they all wondered what on earth I was doing when along with Robin, Kyle and Fieron I unloaded the stock trailer bringing a double bed, along with hooky and clippy rugs, rocking chairs, bedside tables and sewing machines to dress up the set?  At first it all looked a bit higgledy piggledy then all of a sudden I thought, 'there, that's it, we are ready'.

 Tents are not that high on the sides so my quilt frames needed to be brought in off the walls. I had to be doubly sure that no one tripped over the tripods so strategically placed quilt racks and pillows around to guide the viewers through the display....

I brought along two Singer 99K hand crank machines one dates from 1923, the other 1945. I also brought a Wilcox and Gibbs hand crank machine, no bobbin for this one, it produces a lovely chain stitch. I believe this machine to be dated around 1880's. The sewing machines, along with the hooky mats made by my Mother started lots of side topics and reminiscing....

One friend commented on the old fashioned phone sitting on the bedside table, I told him no one had rung all day to which he replied, 'that's because there's no signal in this valley', old meets new every time.

Fieron won a 2nd prize in the sewing category with her Kaffe top too....

 This is a small country show, the local farmers have a sheep show, we came home with a first and two seconds.....

 This is Robin setting up for his sheepdog demonstration, unfortunately I didn't get back outside at the right time to take photos of the actual demonstration.

I would have loved some photos when the quilt tent was full of people chatting but it seemed I was that busy chatting myself too and then the show was over and it was time to pack everything away and head home again, that's just up the road less than a mile away so didn't take long....