retreating

So, craft retreat. Feels soooo long ago due to the hefty doses of Life between then and now. Mmm, what shall I tell you? There was sun ...



... rain ...



sunsets



and gold.



There were glimpses of autumn



where ever you looked



and roses everywhere.



We sewed in the sunlight ...



... beneath a rising moon,



and into the night.



New skills were acquired,





the irons were constantly in use,



and I laughed so hard I couldn't hold the camera steady.



I do love these women.



And these weekends away together.



For me, craft retreat is as much about the retreat as it is about the craft. One of my favourite moments this time was waking up with a start on the first morning at the rather late hour of 9 o'clock (it had been an early start on Friday morning at home with the alarm set for 5.00 am due to a breakfast meeting at work, only to be startled into consciousness at 4.00 am by my phone beeping in my ear (my phone is my alarm clock) with a text message from a friend with a sketchy understanding of time zones. Once we'd recovered from the adrenalin rush and realised no one had died I answered the mister's bleary query with Oh just my friend in America. She's knitting and thought of me. [...] Riiiight, he muttered).

But I digress. So I finally woke up on Saturday and realised the cottage was silent. I stumbled out, thinking everyone must've been over at the studio and had been probably for hours, only to find the sun streaming through the lounge room windows and four bodies variously and silently lounging about the couches and at the table, each engrossed in a book and clutching a hot drink. A mere one person was in the studio and two more were still in bed. Oh this is my tribe all right, I thought.



There are always many such moments at craft retreat with these wise, wonderful [and sometimes wacky] women.



Through the looking glass, into a weekend wonderland.




Even more photos are here.