It was our fourth annual Stitch Gathering retreat on Sunday!! As usual this took place in the Craiglockhart campus of Napier University in South Edinburgh. And as usual we had 90 excited and enthusiastic quilters in attendance!!
Here I am giving my welcome speech, goodness knows what I am talking about here! This was just after everyone had been given their goody bag and had found their nametag swap partner. Yes, a lot goes on even before morning classes at the Stitch Gathering!
For my morning class I was teaching my 3D Improv Dresden workshop and I had some very talented students so it was a bit of a doddle! Either that or I am just getting really good at this teaching lark 😉
Julie was teaching Bucket Totes at the other end of the main room. This is the class I wish I had been able to take – the finished buckets looked fantastic. Julie also brought along her exciting new venture, Black Isle Yarns,the first batch of which she sold at lunchtime!
Next door Carina of Polka and Bloom was teaching folks to do her amazing embellished patchwork. Carina also gave a full day workshop at our studio the day before. She is amazingly talented at embroidery! You should check out her book Romantic Motifs, it is excellent!
Here are some of the results from her class – aren’t they fantastic?! Thanks to Carina for the photos.
We had 4 rooms this year with 5 different classes going on at one time – phew! Here is the Bias Tape Curve class taught by the lovely Jenny Haynes of Papper Sax Sten.
And here is Jenny herself chatting to me over morning tea and pastries. I look a bit intense, but what do you think of my beautiful Loulouthi tunic?! My lovely sister Jane made it for me!!
We launched our Thread House paper patterns at the event and I had all 6 quilts on display. My right hand man (and hubby) Jonathan artistically draped the beautiful quilts to make this display. Jonathan also took nearly all these photos and helped me organise the whole event, I really couldn’t do it without him.
Here are the TTH paper patterns! We sold out of half of the designs at lunchtime. Hopefully I will re-stock and have these listed on our website by the weekend. Of course you can download a PDF from our payhip shop at anytime!
The show and Tell session at lunchtime is always a highlight of the day, and this year we had a proper international quilting star along in Juliet Tartankiwi! Here is her stunning zebra quilt.
Jenny (Patchwork Mummy) showed us this beautiful heart quilt (just back from being quilted by the amazing Trudi Wood, who was also teaching at the event!). Jenny made it for her child’s cardiac nurse who was retiring. I have to admit to getting a little choked up at this quilt’s story.
Kim (KMJ Creations) showed us her La Passacaglia WIP, made from low volume fabric and gorgeous Oakshott. Can’t wait to see this finished next year Kim! 😉
Likewise we hope to see this one quilted and bound in 2017! Lisa (Gertiepye) brought along this 3/4″ hexie EPP that she had inherited from Jo (Life in Lists), all in beautiful Liberty Tana Lawn.
Poppy (Cuckoo Blue) showed us her fab Fancy Foxes quilt.
I never get tired of seeing versions of this design, and Poppy gave me some spare blocks for the Maggie’s Centre Memory Quilt Drive – thanks Poppy!
Everyone stops shopping to see the show and tell, including my wonderful helpers – Barbara, Lynsey, Ali and Colleen, so appreciate all your hard work ladies!
I brought along my New York Beauty Brigade quilt for a little extra eye candy 🙂
This year we had a very exciting Lucky Dip where everyone got a prize, from a spool of thread up to a Jelly Roll or a whole box of Aurifil! We also had some fantastic cutters, rulers and scissors from Fiskars to giveaway. This was actually my favourite bit of the whole event, seeing everyone’s exciting faces and little whoops of joy when they found their ticket number and claimed their prize! Unfortunately both Jonathan and I were enjoying the moment too much to take a photo!
In the afternoon I was hosting some communal hand quilting sessions along with my helper Lynsey. We were quilting all the ticket words from last year’s event (more on this in a future post). I absolutely love this photo, taken by Carina, of Lisa, Donna and Frankie having such a great chat and a laugh while stitching together – what could be better?!
And then there were this year’s tickets!!
We had sent everyone some special Stitch Gathering fabric (designed by Jonathan) and asked them to make a 12″ block of their Dream House.
Well of course they all came up trumps with some wonderfully imaginative and creative designs, and ingenious ways of using the SG fabric!
We had 80 blocks which would nicely make 4 quilts of 20 blocks each. 4 very generous quilter’s Sheila, Dorothy, Lynsey and Trudi took a pile away each to make into quilts for Siblings Together. Thank you so much ladies!!!
Phew! All in all it was a wonderful day and everyone seemed to have a great time. A huge thank you to all who came along, from near and far, and joined in with such positivity and enthusiasm. You are all amazing!
The next post will be the annual Stitch Gathering Goody Bag Giveaway!! And this year I have TWO bags!! So watch this space!
It was a great weekend again Jo, thank you so much.
Looks like everyone had a wonderful time! (I saw lots of happy posts on IG over the weekend, too!) I'm planning to be there next year!!
Gutted to have missed it ��
looks like it was great fun and creative too, loving the assorted houses you certainly had a very imaginative group of stitchers they will make great sibling quilts
Oh my, it looks fabulous. x
Looks like a wonderful time was had by all!
You and Jonathan are such a fab and inspiring team! ??
Brings back memories of my great time last year. Looks fab and I'm hearing lovely reports from my friends, some of whom attended SG as their first time ever at an event like this. I knew SG would work for them because it's so we'll run and hosted and the size is just perfect to keep it from feeling impersonal. Great job, Jo and team!