After an amazing  five hour car journey diagonally across Wales, I arrived at the magnificent house, Plas Tan-Y-Bwlch with terraced gardens on steep slopes with lovely views over the Vale of Ffestiniog and snow capped mountains of Snowdonia in the distance.
'Plas' was built in the 18th century by a wealthy local slate mine owner and is a large, impressive stone built house with a separate servants’ block and a salt-water swimming pool, the water for which was brought up on the Ffestiniog narrow gauge train from the coast at Porthmadog. Elsewhere on the estate are lodges, a dower house, farm buildings, sawmill, smithy, game larder and a laundry cottage along with a deer park and lake.

  

'Plas' is now owned by Snowdonia National Park and is used as a study centre for outdoor pursuits as well as many in indoor pursuits such as textiles. My Shibori class worked in the refurbished glass fronted stable block; Ruth Issett and her group (with Chris Jones and Jane Jenkins from Distant Stitch) were working in the 'messy' studio above and interesting spinning and beading classes in the library and lounge rooms.

Chrissie and Elke show their busy tables, making fabulous scarves and other accessories using the steam-setting method of Shibori. Thanks for a super weekend girls and I hope you all had a safe journey home.