Grey Goat Clothing

I was tagged today by Charlotte Narunsky, and must now share with you seven random facts about myself, as well as posting the rules of the game:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

My random facts are:

1. I get rabidly jealous of anyone, even little kids, who can rollerskate.
2. I don't know my times table (the shame). I mean, I could work it out, but I don't know it, if you shouted "Seven twelves" at me I couldn't say without a little mental arithmetic :)
3. I have a (made up) mental apartment that I think about to calm my brain down, I know everything about it, the feel of the floor, the view out of the windows, the neighbours...
4. I'm afraid of crawling along a tunnel that gets narrorwer and narrower - the bits in Star Trek where they crawl along the Jeffries tube or air vent freaks me out.
5. I have 38 pairs of shoes (just counted).
6. I like peonies and anemones.
7. I have 2 scars, 2 burns and 1 lumpy bit on my forehead where I ran head first into the edge of a door.

Now I get to tag people in turn:

1. Corsetsus - fab corsetry
2. Slumbergirl - cure PJs
3. Kisscurl - burlesque millinery
4. QueenB - cool lingerie from Belgium
5. Frenchtouch - lovely sewing
6. Marmalady - makes awesome fruitcake
7. Sakura jewellery - beautiful precious work

UK retreat team!

They were tracked on mobiles and email from miles around. Travelling by train, by car and by camel (actually, not really by camel), the retreaters made their way to the picturesque York suburb of Escrick, whose inhabitants were blissfully unaware of the disaster about to befall their quiet, genteel village. On 17th August, they arrived, and things were never the same again. They were...the Retreaters.

Organised by the unfailingly lovely and cheerful

Marma, Domino and Lizzycub graffiti-ing

As we all come from very different backgrounds with different skills, it was an amazing chance to learn from everyone and to have a go at all sorts of activities. On the Friday we got time to meet everyone (very strange walking into a kitchen full of vaguely familiar faces!), tour the school, make the words 'Etsy UK' lying on the grass, taste flapjacks from the amazing Marmalady and do some plaster hand casts with the aid of Seaurchin. Oh, and monopolise the pub for tea :)

Traffic at the needle felting table

On Saturday and Sunday we properly attacked the artrooms and tried all sorts of things including:
bookbinding (with Reform)
crochet (with marmalady)
alcohol inking (with Domino)
Tyvek (with lovealittle)
screenprinting
needlefelting (with charlottenarunsky)
watercolours
ceramics (with Seaurchin)
decoupage (with Bombus)

In fact we got so engrossed some people stayed up till 4am in the grip of needle felting fever! We did however take a break to nip into York to get a takeaway and took the opportunity to do some craft graffiti. In case you haven't heard of it (!) this is where people take some time out to pretty up boring street furniture such as lamp posts, pelican crossings etc with (in our case) crochet bunting, scarves, corsets and jewellery. However we didn't have time to hang about as we had to make the most of those art supplies, and returned to it like people possessed.

Plaster casting hands

It was a fabulous weekend, great to meet lots of other Etsyans and put faces to names, and amazing to have such a great venue to do it in - like being back at school but without rules or timetables or homework - couldn't be better.

Thanks again to Tinyisland and to the Bursar of the school, without whom, etc etc. Sign up for next year!

Scrappy and I, me with my new pendant from Sea

Gorgeous new pendant from Seaurchin (Etsy shop). It's not shown off to best effect in this pic, but trust me it is beautiful!

It is a glossy olive green with little touches of gold on the craters. Beautiful! Now I see what all the fuss is about. I feel another purchase coming on...