This weekend was the tenth year of our annual beadwork retreat at Gartmore House. To celebrate we put on our sparkly outfits and held an exhibition of the all the previous classes. A glass of fizz or two may have been consumed in the process! As part of the evening, I gave a speech attempting to capture the essence of the weekend and how, after a decade it's still going from strength to strength. We have been running our bead retreat since 2009. We've gone from 28 people joining us for the weekend to a whopping 52 this year. In that time, there have been 107 classes and in those classes 1233 needles have been threaded, ready to begin. There are 11 of us who have been every single year. (
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