Contemporary Quilt winter school

The "weekend away" was at Wentworth Castle, aka Northern College, near Barnsley - the house was built in 1670 and has been much remodelled, and in the 21st century has been converted to residential adult education. The gardens and parkland are Grade 1 listed.

 The weather was "misty" - not much sign of the view across the valley.

The Victorian glasshouses have recently been restored and are bookable for weddings.

Inside, the college dining room has an amazing ceiling-

and the Blue Room, where we had coffee (and drinks of an evening) also betrays some signs of former grandeur -

Elsewhere are 19th-century stained glass windows-

and whimsical details (next door was "Robin B.R.") -

I was one of a select handful who chose the "retreat" option rather than a class, and here we are at work on our individual projects -

In case you think "retreat" has connotations of working in silence, you are very wrong! There wasn't a hint of anything approaching monasticism in the weekend.

Others, of course, were in classes, and at the end of the Sunday session laid out their work for viewing -

Jenni Dobson's design workshop included working in small groups

Maps of individual places in Alicia Merrett's workshop

Yvonne Brown had everyone working hard to produce "surfaces for stitch"

I stitched four "folding maps" - with varying degrees of success and satisfaction -

The fabrics, synthetic to take transfer colour, were an acetate, a sheer, a satin, and a crepe. I added blocks of fabric and lines of stitch, and was just finding ways of hiding the interesting bits within the folds when it was time to pack up and go home.

The first two, opened out

The first one, in various stages of opening

Given a history of being told "don't touch the textiles!", people were reluctant to interact with these - I especially hoped they'd turn them over and look at the back, and had sometimes added extra bits there. 

"What are you going to do with them" was the usual question. "Make a box for them, so that to see them, people have to lift them out" is an idea I'm considering. I'd like to stitch several more of the folded and coloured fabrics, then make that box, and then consider whether to do any more along these lines.

(This post is linked to Off the Wall Friday.)