Carcassonne Crochet Retreat

During the first week of October I was lucky enough to go away on holidays to France on my own for a week. I say on my own but actually I was with my bestest oldest friend (we have known each other for 49 years!!!) and a group of 12 others on a lovely relaxing crochet retreat. The retreat, which was organised by Stitchtopia and run by the wonderful Lucy of Attic24 fame, took place in the beautiful city of Carcassonne in southern France.

We set off very early (I got up at 2:30am - yikes!) on a Monday morning and got off to a great start with bucks fizz for breakfast at the airport...

We met everybody at the departure gate and before long we were touching down in Toulouse to beautiful sunny weather. An hour or so on the coach and we were afforded our first view of beautiful Carcassonne...

... and yes it really does look like that - just WoW - a beautiful, historic, medieval, walled city perched on a hill surrounded by rolling green fields. (Well on a few sides anyway, there is also a newer area of town but we'll come to that later.) 

Entering the city is by way of a huge gate which would have had a portcullis and drawbridge, as there is a dry moat ...

Once inside the city, which is made up of lots of little winding roads and alleyways made of cobblestones, its very peaceful and quiet as there is no traffic (hence no traffic noise), and of course everywhere is safe for pedestrians. Everywhere you look there are little restaurants and boutique shops, its just so quaint and pretty.

Our hotel was actually inside the walled city so it was very handy for all the restaurants, and lovely and peaceful at night. We stayed for 6 days - 4 days of crochet (yippee!!!) and 2 days sight-seeing (with a little crochet added in of course!). During our crochet days we had workshops run by the lovely Lucy, who taught us about colour theory, and then gave us a wonderful pattern to follow for a cushion cover. We were challenged to be bold and brave with our colour choices, and to step outside of our comfort zones. And how lucky were we - we were each given a pack of Scheepjes minis to work with (photo nicked from Lucy as I was to excited and forgot to take one !) ...

Ooooh my! Amazing! Such gorgeous colours and such cute little balls, just such fun for messing about with and playing with colour. The front side of the cushion was a little experimental with some blending first of all ...

 

... and this soon grew into nearly a competed front cover ....

... it was wonderful to see how everybody else's cushion covers were so different despite working from the same palette...

... we added some little flowers to the middle of the front, here is mine completed ...

... to be honest I'm not wildly happy with it, too much orange maybe ? But here is the reverse and Oh My GoSh I LoVe It ...

I feel with the front I let myself overthink it whereas with the reverse I just went with the flow a bit and as a result it feels much more balanced. Or maybe its just that I love brights so much! Nevertheless the workshops were such fun, lots of lively chatter and laughter, and soooo good to spend time with like-minded people, and during down time we could relax in the sweet little hotel garden ...

We had a couple of days of sightseeing, and the old town of Carcassonne is so beautiful - I took a gazillion photos. One lunchtime we went for a tour of the chateau and ramparts - the walled part of the city consists of over 50 towers, and its possible to walk around the ramparts a fair way. 

We made it into the new area of town as well, and had a lovely afternoon shopping ...

... and we went on a little boat tour too ...

On our second sightseeing day we went to Lavantel to the Musee de Textiles .... 

... and we saw some fascinating spinning and weaving demonstrations ...

Over the week we had lots of lovely food and of course vino!

But all too soon it was time to go home again. Going back to the reality of laundry and cooking was a bit of a shock to the system, I can tell you! 

I've been a terrible blogger this year, but am hoping to get things started again with this post - so watch this space and next time I will have some crafty happenings for you.

Til next time, hope you have some crafty fun,

Jillxxx