My weekend adventure and a winner!!

I am warning you in advance that this is a long post, so if you want to skip down to the bottom of the page to see who the giveaway winner is without reading through the rest, please feel free to!!

From left to right: Gail Pan, myself and Karen of Patchwork Chicks

Let's start at the beginning.... on Friday I set off from home to drive the 230 miles to Barrowford in Lancashire where Karen of Patchwork Chicks has her lovely shop and where the two workshops she had organised with guest designer, Gail Pan were to be held.  After a long journey I made it to my hotel and, after a good night's sleep I was looking forward to a lovely day of stitching.

When I arrived at the Pendle Heritage Centre Barn where the workshops were held, I was met with a delightful display of Gail Pan quilts and accessories. It was lovely to have the opportunity to look closely at the quilts Gail had brought with her. The displays were fabulous and, I couldn't resist adding one or two (or more!) patterns to my collection.

Once everyone was seated, Gail introduced herself and showed us the project we were to make in the first workshop.  It was a lovely pattern called 'My Stitching Things'.  When we all had the embroidery pattern transferred, we started work on the stitching and Gail moved from table to table to give us all help and advice.

I shared my table with a very nice lady called Jill and we chatted happily as we stitched away at our patterns.

After a day of chatting and stitching we had a break to visit Karen's lovely shop where I might have bought one or two fat quarters of fabric to add to my stash and a few other 'essentials' before we headed back to the Barn for a trunk show with Gail.  It was lovely to learn more about Gail and how she has built up her business.

I headed back to my hotel having had the most wonderful day! 

The next morning at breakfast I met two more lovely ladies who were staying at the same hotel to attend the Sunday workshop, Lynda (who also writes a fun blog) and Wendy.  Our project for the day was another lovely pattern called 'Hazel'.  This pattern included some needleturn applique which I had never attempted before, so I was very excited to learn a new technique.

Gail's needleturn methods were quick and easy to learn and I will certainly be using them again.  My first attempts were a bit 'wobbly' in places so I added some embroidery stitches around some of the applique shapes to cover my mistakes! 

All in all it was a great weekend and I am so happy to have had the opportunity to meet Gail whose designs I have admired for a long time.  I would like to say thank you to her and to Karen and her team who made it such a lovely occasion.  Also to my newly found friends, Jill, Lynda and Wendy.... we had a lot of fun!!

Now, to end this post, I would like to announce the winner of my 300th blog post giveaway. I folded the names of all those who left me comments (which I enjoyed reading) into a pot and pulled out a winner.....

The winner is Wendy Booth-Boyd.  I will be in touch Wendy to get your postal address so that I can send on your prize.  Thank you to everyone who left a comment.