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Great Places To Visit - Australasian Quilt Convention - Melbourne Royal Exhibition Building - April 16-19, 2015.

Had a fun 2 days at the AQC recently.Beautiful quilts everywhere you looked. Some inspirational, some just plain daunting in their detail and workmanship!  Loved it all.  Enjoyed browsing the many stands with lots of different "quilt stuff" to look through, learn about and purchase. Yes, I can resist anything, except temptation when it come to quilting.  I had a ball buying bits and pieces from fabrics to templates to cottons,  lots of quilting stuff.  Poor hubby, he won't be quitting his day job in a hurry. God bless him and his generous nature.

Anyway I learned heaps from the free 1/2 hour seminars and enjoyed playing on the VERY expensive long arm quilting machines. They are so large they would take up 1/2 my house! Fun to play with though.  Unfortunately the lack of space was the last thing I needed to worry about as the price tag for these things starts at around $17,000.00 and that's a convention special!  For a home hobby quilter that's just way beyond my reach. Still I can play with them at the conventions, and that's always fun.

I enrolled in the "Make a laundry bag for our Troups", course at the Bernina stand. What great fun that was for only $5 and the material was already donated.  Got to try out a Bernina sewing machine to make it on to. Felt like I was doing my 5 cents worth for our soldiers.

There were a great collection of things to do or see from Lucky Door Prizes, Quilt Show, Special Guest Speakers, Convention Classes, Shopping, Seminars, Sewing Room, Make & Take Classes, and much more. Needed 2 days to do everything I wanted and see everything there was to see! Luckily it runs for 4 days, so plenty of time.

I especially enjoyed the Tributes to our diggers quilts titled Lest We Forget. Fantastic photo of a group of our overseas diggers holding up their very own home made quilts from strangers to them.  Also the Aussie Hero Quilts stand sends handmade quilts and laundry bags to Aussie service men and women serving overseas to express gratitude for their service. "Not works of art, but works of the heart".  I was very pleased to be able to be a small part of this with my laundry bag.  If any of my readers out there are interested in helping out with quilt blocks or laundry bags or just want to know more about Aussie Hero Quilts & Laundry Bags here are some quick links for you:

At aussieheroquilts.blogspot.com.au they have all of the information you will need to get started.

For information about quilt sizes::  www.aussieheroquilts.blogspot.com.au/p/quilt-specifices.html

For information about laundry bags & tutorial: www.aussieheroquilts.blogspot.com.au/p/tutorials-quilts-n-blocks.html

You can also "like" them on Facebook: Aussie Hero Quilts (And Laundry Bags)

The woman who started this is Jan-Maree Ball (Founder & Coordinator)

Phew! That's about it for Aussie Quilts.  I wanted to include this though as I feel strongly about supporting our troops and want to be able to share this with others.












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