Great Places To Visit - Australasian Quilt Convention - Melbourne Royal Exhibition Building

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.

Great Reading - Crime, Conspiracy, Action - "Mortal Insight" by E.B. James

Mortal Insight A brilliant novel. Draws you in, then keeps you in suspense. It brings you conspiracy, crime, action and asks the question: When your life is at stake, are some truths worth bringing out into the open? Detective Sergeant Steve Keller has begun to see things. He desperately hopes the visions mean something and not that he's going crazy. But the visions don't go away, and when they start meaning something more, Steve finds himself caught in an investigation way bigger than he ever imagined. As the pieces begin to fit together, something dangerous emerges. He can't hide what he knows, but to expose it doesn't just stir up controversy, it provokes someone who lurks in the shadows; someone who will kill to keep this information quiet. Great reading, didn't want to put it down when I first began to read it. When I picked it up the second time, well, I couldn't put it down until I finished it at 2.00am in the morning!!! Worth the lack o...

Great Storm to Watch - Over Tocumwal N.S.W. Australia - Mini Tornado

A mini Tornado struck Strathmerton on the weekend of October 31/10/15 destroying a couple of houses. Luckily no one was hurt. Just a bit further along the Murray River at Tocumwal the Tornado ended. We happened to be home and live near the edge of town, close to the river. We saw the sky turn pink, grey and green. Ominous. Can't remember a stormy grey sky turning pink or especially green before. Made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Then we heard this roar. Bernie looked at me as we stood on our back verandah watching the clouds flying about and said "What's that noise?" I replied, "Wind. Lots of it. I think we should go inside now." As I said this we saw the sky along the river turn green and pink and the trees begin to whip wildly. We retreated inside for a bit and as the roar died away we ventured back out to the front verandah as torrential rain began to fall. And boy did it rain!!! The early afternoon turned dark as the clouds above turned ...

Venice - city of water and glass

Whilst Venice was not the "romantic" city we were expecting, it was however very different. To walk the streets with no traffic, traffic lights, etc was most unusual and very nice. To move from place to place required a water taxi or similar, again unusual and very enjoyable. Venice has many endearing features not least of which (from a woman's viewpoint) are the many Venetian Glass Shops selling jewellery, light fittings, decorations, and much more made from Venetian Glass. Truly beautiful and astounding as to how it is done. HINT: look for the little shops out of the main area.....there cheaper. Needless to say the assorted women in my life are now wearing Venetian Glass jewellery! I enjoyed Venice!! My husband is not so sure how he feels!! He had to pay the bill!

Great Places To Visit.

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