In April, we ventured to Ireland to host our very first over seas workshop in Wexford! This all started around Christmas when in passing comment our wonderful friend Pauline, mentioned she’d like to host a Moonlight Stitches workshop over in her beautiful work space! After a few back and forth messages, it was decided – April 20th we were doing the Estella Fox Workshop.
Fast forward a few months and we were packed and making our way to Holyhead to board a ferry with a car FULL of our pop up haberdashery and workshop supplies!
Now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves – there is always a story tell with us, so we will begin our adventure with a tale of wonder and mystery. The mystery of where or when we would find an EV Charging point for the car once we reached Wales! Now for those of you who live in this beautiful part of the country, I am sure there are many you can tell us of, but with only 20 miles on the charge and none to seen (even though, they were marked on our Sat Nav!) we may have started to panic! That was until, we found ourselves a Tesco! Fabulous, we thought. We’ll park up and plug in while we go into ‘BIG TESCO’. Anyway, upon the realisation that it was not a big Tesco, with lots of naff home decor and pyjama sets to look at but only a mini store, we decided we’d just get some bits and sit and wait.
By now, you’re probably thinking, phew, that could have been bad! Only, it gets worst! Now, the charging cable seems to be STUCK in the car and charging station. So with a giant seagull mocking us from the top of the van, parked near by – we really started to panic. I’d just like to mention here, that we were already 5 and a half hours into a 3 and hour drive! Haha!
After what seemed like forever, YouTubing and googling we managed to release the charger only to find it has topped us up to around 40 miles! Don’t worry, we managed to find a service station about 40 minutes away from our Air B&B and left with full charge. After stocking up with a much needed bottle of wine, we settled in for the night and a lovely place only a few minutes away from port.
After a good nights sleep, we were on route to board our ferry to Dublin! We had booked ourselves into the hygge lounge both trips, so we were happy to find our seats in there and found it was just us and one other passenger in the room. This made the trip across the Irish Sea, wonderfully quiet and the 3 or so hours seemed to go quite quickly.
Once we were in the beautiful setting of the Emerald Isle, we enjoyed the most beautiful drive to Pauline’s in Wexford. After a quick diversion to another elusive EV charging point – which again only seemed to top us up slightly – we finally made it to our final destination with only 4% battery to spare and abandoned our car on Pauline’s drive. Where her husband, Mark, our saviour immediately plugged us in!
After a wonderful dinner, we were off out again to a wonderful Textile Art Exhibition at the Signal Arts Centre in Bray. The exhibition itself was called 04-24 – Lasting Impressions by 04 Textile Group, a collective of 9 textile artists based in Dublin and Wicklow who have been exhibiting their work of both contemporary and traditional forms since 2004. Here are a few of our favourite pieces from the exhibition.
There is a virtual tour of the show you can view here and even an opening night video you can watch here! Keep a close look out for my starring role at the end! Ha!
Friday, we enjoyed a slow day – running errands with Pauline and visiting the local town of Wexford. There we enjoyed a look around a wonderful haberdashery – Crafty’s and enjoyed their button display and ending the trip off with what felt like an excursion to a small vintage shop!
Friday night, we organised and transformed Pauline’s space ready for the Estella Fox Workshop, did we mention she has a log burner in there? Honestly, I could write a post just about her DREAM STUDIO! Once fed and done, Pauline showed me how to create the most beautiful machine embroidery piece using a wedding photograph while we enjoyed drinks by the fire in great company.
Finally the day of the workshop arrived. A morning full of excited as each of the lovely ladies arrived, each wonderful in their own way! After a morning of laughter, pattern cutting and placing, the most delicious lunch of homemade potato and leak soup, along with a salad and sourdough bread was served. Prepared to perfection by both Pauline and Mark.
Following a fun afternoon of slow stitch and lots of shopping at the Pop Up haberdashery, our Estella Fox Workshop came to an end. We had the most fun hosting in Ireland and abslutely hope to be invited back again soon!
Our final night ended with drinks and food with Pauline and Marks extended family well into the night before saying our good nights and off to our guest rooms (which I might add here, included the most wonderful ‘Guest Basket’ full of goodies and the most wonderful smelling felted soap!) and slept sounding in the incredibly quite countryside.
With that, our adventure drew to a close. We finally set off to board our returning ferry to Holyhead and make our way back home – this time with a clear plan of when and where we could charge the car. Haha!
We could not have asked for a more welcoming and friendly time over in Ireland, surrounded by creative minds and souls with an age of experience between us. There were no silent moments, only air filled with laughter and joy each day we were there.
Thank you again to Mark and Pauline for being such gracious hosts. We hope that one day, we can repay your stay, even by half!
Until our next post!
You are both very welcome! Glad you had a great time and thank you again for such a beautiful workshop and all the stitching goodies 🙂