A Cracking Good Weekend

The weekend before last 17 women descended on a group of holiday cottages on the Staffs / Derby border called Dove Farm Cottages for a long weekend of stitching and nattering at it was one of the best weekends I've had in a long time.

We're all members of an online community and have met up before in smaller groups but we took a gamble that we could all survive a weekend in each other's company and it was a good gamble because we had a fantastic time.

Firstly the cottages are amazing. Clean, well equiped and in the middle of the most gorgeous countryside you can imagine. Not only that they have alpacas, one of whom was kind enough to have a baby shortly before we arrived - if you go to the website I linked to above and click to read their blog you'll see some pictures of Cocoa. We had various plans to steal him but we figured as we want to go back next year we'd better leave him behind.

As well as forays to Wye Needlecraft and a local Patchwork shop Kate from Sparklies did us proud with a floss / fabric dyeing class and I can safely say I haven't had that much fun for years. I regressed to childhood and behaved like a two year old - the immersion dyeing was good but the sponge dyeing was terrific fun. And yes, I'll admit to it being me that named a fabric colour 'basically bonkers' but in my defense Kate used the description for me first so she should take the ultimate blame.

It was late nights, too much food and not much stitching but we shared WIPs and HDs, wish lists grew and Sparklies sold about half it's stock. I did manage a small HD (pic to follow) but generally I was laughing too much to be able to stitch - 'I can't get it in the hole' was the recurring shout over the three days and yes, we were talking about needles...

One of the great things about the cottages is they come with a Seminar room big enough to house 18 people (the maximum who can stay in the three cottages) so we were able to all sit together and chat and stitch. Having said that the weather was wonderful for us and we did spend a lot of time sitting outdoors.

Anyway, we're booked again for next year and I can't wait. I'm currently trying to work out how to schedule a pregnancy around the chosen weekend LOL