A few years ago my husband Mike and I moved to Norfolk to set up a B&B in an old property that used to be the village bakery. The house has seen many changes over the years and the last owner was a retired vicar who ran christian retreats here. We feel that same sense of peace and tranquility and having established the B&B we are now offering quilt retreats. A chance to sit and sew in the summer sunshine in the garden or in front of a roaring log-fire when winter sets in followed by lots of locally sourced home-cooked food. What could be better!
People can either bring their own projects to work on or take part in one of my workshops. (photos below of projects being worked on)
Perhaps quilt retreats are the modern equivalent of the quilting bees that were popular in America during the 1800’s. Women would gather, sometimes from miles around to spend a day collectively quilting one or more quilts. When one quilt was finished they moved onto one for somebody else in the group. Young girls would work on quilt tops for their ‘bottom drawer’ often making a ‘baker’s dozen’; 12 of which would be pieced patchwork and for daily use and the final one an elaborate hand quilted design kept for ‘best’. These quilting / sewing bees were a chance to catch up on gossip and for children to play together. The day often finished with singing and dancing as whole families gathered together to eat and to socialise.
In our busy lives with much of our inter-action taking place through social media having time to quietly sit and sew is a real treat (we don’t offer the singing and dancing afterwards ourselves but there’s nothing to stop you doing so!). A chance to create something meaningful whilst recharging the batteries. When this activity is shared it feels like we’re going back several hundred years to perhaps a simpler way of living whilst we repeat the same activities of sewing, gossiping and supporting each other just as our American cousins did several centuries before us.
Norfolk Patch 