Christmas is not far away

I'm a follower of Where Women Create on Facebook and Jo's blog. If, like me you like to check out what other women are creating and how they fit into their lives. Check out Jo Packham's sites as there is heaps of information and inspiration. Presently she has a competition going for the '12 Days of Christmas' and all you have to do is visit her blog and leave a message on any particular day or all 12 days if you wish. You can get to the particular link by clicking on the 'Christmas is coming' logo you see in the right-hand column on this page.

I Won some fabric from Beth Ferrier

How exciting is this - I just received an email from Beth Ferrier of Applewood Farm fame who told me I had won a parcel of fat quarters from her!!! My comment on her blog was picked out.
I am so excited just had to write here and let you all know.

Will get back to updating notes from my trip very shortly. When the parcel arrives (probably about 14 or so days from the US) will post a pic of what I won. Yippee. As if I didn;'t have enough fabric, but this is special.....

If you have a chance go and visit her blog and her website - both are great places to visit.

From NY to Lancaster

We left New York on Tuesday morning and travelled by coach through the most beautiful, green and lush countryside on our way to Lancaster and the Amish and Mennomite communities.

It was very strange leaving such a vibrant, busy city and only a couple of hours later to find ourselves in an entirely different environment.

Our first stop was Burkholders, just outside of Lancaster and of course we helped their economy! Here are some of us (Rosemary in front) lining up to pay for our purchases.

Burkholders is quite a large shop with a huge class room and a large display of quilts on the walls and around all areas of the shop and one wall complete with gadgets etc.

We stayed at the Marriott, a fairly new hotel in Lancaster city for 4 nights and travelled by coach during the day to various Amish communities - Intercourse (passing by Virgintown/Maidenville!!!) and Bird-In-Hand.

While in Lancaster we visited one of Lancaster's museums which has a large collection of quilts and also on display was a collection of Native Indian woven wool wallhangings. The colours in this collection were beautiful, strong reds and browns. This is just a small number.

Unfortunately the antique quilts were all encased in glass and when taking photos they show a lot of reflection and wont post very well.

So if you want to see what I took you will just have visit me!!!!!!

New York - Part 2 (b)

It had been arranged for us to visit an exhibition of quilts held in the Williams Club. This was partly organised in conjunction with The City Quilter which we had previously visited.

The quilts were all made by quilters living and/or working in the New York area and were displayed in various rooms of the club. Vary diverse works.

Quite a few versions of Dear Jane as you can see here. Some quite contemporary ones, large and small. It was quite exciting to see our first exhibition on our trip and the standard of work by 'every day quilters' not just the professional ones or award winning quilts. For me, I thought they were all deserving of an award - much different to my standard!!!!

After 4 days in New York, seeing the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Ground Zero, and a couple of us even did an underground rail trip (Yvonne and myself tried our best to get back from Staten Island via train - caught the wrong one - ended up going through the Bronx area, but eventually got back) Sorry Yvonne, it was a long walk from Times Square back to the hotel!!!!! We then boarded the coach and headed to Lancaster - Amish country.

Stay turned for more.......

New York - part 2 (a)

After seeing Jersey Boys on Broadway we went to dinner at the Olive Grove, an Italian restaurant about 2 blocks away.


They serve the most delicious cocktails - this was called a 'Mango & Passionfruit' daiquiri.

Very potent, and as you can see by the comparison with the glass of water, not small!! (Note - I only had one)





After dinner we walked the length of Broadway (almost) - what a fantastic sight - so much to see - there were as you can guess so many lights and billboards, also many street vendors and entertainers.

Very, very vibrant atmosphere. Loved everything about it.

Unfortunately I had a photo of me with Elmo but it didn't come out very well - flash wasn't turned on (duh!!)





The next day we went on a walking tour of the 'garment district' of New York.

Fascinating stuff - there is this magnificent bronze sculpture of a man at an old treadle sewing machine and also along one footpath many plaques denoting the various designers that have worked in the area.

We were lucky to be able to go into some warehouses and purchase material off the shelves (mainly dressmaking stuff etc).

New York - part 1

We stayed at the Raddison on Lexington. Our first venture into a quilting shop was The City Quilter in New York.

A smallish shop going by the standards of others we went into later in the trip - but about the same size as some of ours in Oz. Heaps of fabric, books and notions that we don't see very much of here. They have their own range of specialist NY fabric - taxis, city skylines, etc and of course I had to buy some! I think just about everyone did.

I know what you're going to say - show us - I will as soon as I my visitors have gone and everyone has seen the goodies. I will then properly unpack the cases - note cases! Sue and myself had to purchase extra - we were very close to the weight limit of 23kgs. But one can have 2 cases with 23 kgs - so that is what we did! Cheaper than paying for excess baggage.......

This was the start of our mission to 'help the US economy situation'.

Our bus driver also took us for a tour of the city highlights. Love the traffic and the pedestrians - lost count of how many we missed!!!! They take no notice of traffic lights.



Getting back to our hotel I looked out our window (our room was on the 8th floor) and saw this very interesting sight. Don't know how it got there, but the car was gone the next day. If I didn't take this photo you would have said I dreamt it!

Wanderer's return

Hi everyone,
I'm back. What a fantastic trip. Apologies for not posting while away but we were only able to get limited computer access, and family were expecting updates - had to get my priorities right!

I am still getting over jet-lag. It is taking a bit longer than I thought. All up we had 28 hours flying time from Houston-Denver-LA-Sydney, then to Melbourne, with approx 2 hrs at each airport transit lounge, so the full journey to get home was 35 hours. Long, long time to not have a proper sleep, plus the fact that when we left it was Sunday and arrived on Tuesday - Monday was non-existent!!!! It is that infernal 'date-line' we cross when flying over the Pacific. Was thinking about asking someone to move it to the other side of the world - say the Atlantic!!!!

Apart from all of that it was absolutely fantastic. Great people in the tour group, the loveliest of tour guides - Michelle Maher from Travelrite and Michelle Marvig who was so helpful with any questions we had about our purchases. There were many many boxes of goodies sent home and some of us (me included) bought an extra case to bring home, once we worked it out that it was cheaper to do this than post the boxes. On the flights we were allowed 2 cases with 23k in each and as most of us went with one, when the weight was getting very close to the limit before we even arrived in Houston the way to go was to get another case. I can tell you, it didn't take long to fill.

I purchased two small Amish quilts (wallhangings) which I am thrilled with.

As soon as I get my photos sorted out I will post some pics and more little stories as the days go by. I managed to fill 2 x 2gb sim cards in my camera. Not sure how many times I had to charge the batteries!!!!!

Afraid it is getting close to that time of night when I am starting to flag, so need to make a warm drink and off to bed with one of the books/mags I bought.

Today I finished my ATCs that I will be taking with me to swap at Houston on the Quilting Arts wall.
I made 8, hope that will be enough and they are all basically the same design, just with a slight variation of the boomerang and shape of the wattle tree. I decided on the wattle as it is our floral emblem and the boomerang being aboriginal. For the background I used a rich blue silk material for the sky and I cut up a serviette for the earth! It was the only thing I had that was a good representation of our red earth. Trouble is I now have 5 instead of 6. Anyone know what I should do with them???

Freebies

Don't we all love a freebie? I came across this blog while doing a search for something entirely different. There are heaps and heaps of links to freebies - patterns, hints, how to's etc etc. Please check it out (no brown paper bags here, just love the site). I have also put a link in my reading list also. I plan to make the fabric bowl that is listed. Very easy instructions and templates included.

Gathering info for Houston

I have been spending some time contacting different crafters/shops who I have dealt with or just like their blogs, etc to see who will be exhibiting at Houston Quilt Festival. I thought this was the easiest way as when I downloaded the Festival catalogue (83 pages!!!) my mind went into 'overload'. There is so much information I'm not sure how we can get around the whole festival and see everything, even though we will be there for 3 days.

Interestingly, quite a few wont be there - cost is too high for some, which I fully understand as our shows here in Oz tend to be very expensive for the exhibitors as well. But there are still a few that myself and friends want to check out. I'm compiling a list of names, what they're doing (if a demonstration etc) and type of things they have. Sue has a list of some other shops to visit as well.

With the information and what has been arranged by the tour company plus our own info we should be well and truly capable of helping the economy of our friends in the US!!!

On my return, depending on how big it turns out, I will post this info and any other info on what we see at Houston for future reference if any of you out there go in the future.

I'm not sure if I will be posting to the blog while away - will depend on computer access.

Two and a bit weeks to go......... have nearly finished my ATCs for Quilting Arts trading wall. When finished will put up a pic.