Hatched and Patched

Houston Update

Hi Everyone,

I just thought I would let you know how thing are going over in the States. We had a great trip over landing in Los Angeles and then on to Denver and finally Houston (about 26 fun filled hours of travel). We left on Tuesday and arrived on Tuesday. We had the 1st day off so we went to the Galleria which is a great shopping centre full of unique clothing and other fun shops. Peter had a great time.

Thursday and Friday we set up our stall, other aussies exhibiting were the girls from Melly and Me and Lynette Anderson, always full of fun. And on Friday night we started getting down to the serious stuff with what is called Sample Spree. This is where you have a table (200 exhibitors in total) and you sell samples and showcase new designs in fabric and patterns. It is a lot of fun but absolute complete mayhem.

From all the questions I am getting I should explain how the show works. There are actually 2. The 1st show is the International Quilt Market which is only open to shops and is a wholesale trade show. Then straight after Market is Quilt Festival which is open to the General Public. These shows are huge, at Market (which is the one I am doing) there are roughly 500 exhibitors with over 1250 booths. We are in Row 1 and it takes AGES to walk right over to the other side for lunch. The food hall is amazing (not like Australian shows) about the size of 1 Darling Harbour Hall alone. There are individual food stalls serving fresh fruit smoothies, roasted nuts, pizzas, mexican, italian and abnormally large stuffed potatoes.

Pete and I have now finished our 1st day at Market (only 2 to go). We have been blown away with the amount of people here, so we are thinking the Patchwork world will be living on even through this economic crisis (you can't keep a good quilters down!)

I am a huge fan of Barb and Alma from Blackbird Designs and Terri from Whimsicals and Renee from Liberty Star, & it has been great catching up and chatting with them. They have all put out new books also, so I am in heaven....!

Anyway thats it for today, I apoligise for not replying to all the feedback but I will do that as soon as I get back to Australia, just a touch busy.

Talk soon
Anni

The World As It Should Be is here, and off to Houston we go!!

Hi everyone!

After a lot of thinking I decided to make all the projects from the Coonamble Womens Gathering into a book, as they were all based on the same image, but using different techniques and styles. It was heaps of fun trialing the same design in so many different aspects! The Womens Gathering was held last Saturday in Coonamble and Carey reported back to me saying it was heaps of fun! If you have no idea of what I'm talking about, there is more on this in my post dated August 22nd.

Anyway, I picked up the book from the printers on Friday, and it will retail for $21.80 (Aust). If you have trouble sourcing the fabric etc for these projects from your local shop, I will have some fabric packs available (SOON).

Pete and I are off to Houston again this afternoon for the International Quilt Market and we are madly packing and ticking off a VERY long list of things to organise before we go. There are a few other new patterns I have completed (YAY), so I will post them on the Blog soon.

 
 

Fun in Tasmania

Hi everyone

FINALLY I am back in Blog land. We returned from Tasmania a week ago and I can thoroughly recommend a holiday down there. It was very hard to pull ourselves back over to the mainland. We had very smooth sailing both ways on the ferry (YAY - we were all grateful for that!!!) and did everything possible while we were away. We went to Port Arthur, Cradle Mountain, Australia's biggest maze (my son's favourite as he is a Harry Potter fan and pretended to be in the movie the whole time - I was Ron groan groan), Platypus World where Samantha (daughter) was walked upon by an echidna, Seahorse World (yes, lot's of different worlds down there!), and the zoo where we saw some Tasmanian Devils. We went to a cheese factory and of course the chocolate factory where of course we had a fabulous time munching.

As you know, the main reason I went to Tasmania was to participate at the Quilted Crow's workshop in Hobart which was brilliant! I think I may have to go as a visitor next year. Everyone received gorgeous gifts, and the stage in the quaint church hall was decorated as Deidre and Leonie's shop which is a must see. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera for the workshop - too busy remembering to take everything else! There were 80 women participating in the day, and I was lucky enough to meet up with some of my blog 'pals', and a friend from the mainland who flew down specially. Also the very talented Helen Stubbings from Hugs'n'kisses was there, as well as many others who were all so very friendly and welcoming. The following day we went to the girls shop (took the camera that day), and they have a room of retro fabric and quilts, a room of woven wools and punch needle, and a room of reproduction fabrics and quilts. I could have stayed there for ages (according to my son I did hee hee).

Below is a photo of Deidre, Nat, Leonie and I at The Quilted Crow. Well worth a visit.