By Maggie Colpus, justhands-on.tv Event Co-ordinator.
What a weekend. 22 ladies descended on the magnificent and spacious Langstone Quays for an exciting weekend of sewing fun organised by justhands-on.tv.
About 12 ladies (and one husband) stayed on the Friday. Some even arrived early to explore the local area and the facilities at the hotel. Later we tried to work our way through the extensive bar list before enjoying a fabulous dinner.
Saturday morning, the rest of the group started arriving from about 8.30 and there was coffee, tea and croissants waiting for them. Our non-participating husband happily took himself off to explore the area whilst we got quilting.
On Saturday, Julia Gahagan took half the group to teach her amazing miniature quilts. She started with a small Christmas card style quilt and the progressed to a miniature Christmas quilt. The pieces were tiny, but oh my to see what had been accomplished by the end of the day. I was speechless. Angela Madden took the remainder of the group for her Surprising Silhouettes. Again, we were blown away with what had been achieved. On Sunday the two tutors swapped groups. This allowed everyone to learn from both tutors. Our very own Valerie Nesbitt joined Julia’s class on Sunday and also managed to complete a miniature quilt – not sure if she did the Christmas card though!!
It is so nice to see people making friends over the sewing tables and sharing idea, and tools. The official class end was 4 p.m. but the majority of the ladies stayed on to complete their projects. They even had to be reminded to go to dinner! Some didn’t stay and sew after class. Instead they took advantage of the swimming pool, hot tub, and steam room and an odd spa treatment.
We heard back from some of the students once they got home. One told us: “The retreat was even better than I expected or hoped for, and it would be hard to believe that there is a more sharing community than patchworkers and quilters. I’m sure you know more about me than you needed or wanted to but now realise that last weekend’s retreat gave me so much more than new skills and friends – it was the respite that I needed. I have now booked for 23-24 November and 28-29 March 2020”
Another said: “ I will come away from the weekend thinking why have I not done this before?! What a lovely group of ladies who are willing to share their knowledge and equipment – I will be back and bring my mother.”
So all round it was a very successful weekend in a lovely location, with good food and plenty of tea and coffee. So much so no one seemed bothered to learn the bridge from the mainland to Hayling Island was threatened with closure by the storms. We could sew, there was plenty of food and drink and we were warm and dry. And we could always have a spa treatment to treat ourselves if we wanted to!!
Click on the pictures below, which are courtesy of Tracy Voice from Craft Focus Magazine, to see what we got up to. Keep an eye out for the February / March issue of Craft Focus for Tracy’s first hand account of her experiences as a retreater with justhands-on.tv!
Why not come and join us and escape for the weekend at one of our upcoming retreats – you’ll find full details here.
