Retreat, retreeeaaaat, the UKers are coming!

Aug 21, 2007 at 10:12 PM
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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

Tinyisland, the UK Etsyers' retreat came off beautifully this last weekend! The idea was to take over the Queen Margaret school which possesses amazing art facilities to allow some of the UK Etsy team to try their hand(s) at all sort of arts and crafts. Tiny was so generous and helpful, it could never have happened without her! Thankyou!

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!

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Retreat, retreeeaaaat, the UKers are coming!

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