This is where I have been...

To the Scquilters (southerncross quilters) retreat in Adelaide, lovely Glenelg to be precise.

Scquilters host a retreat anually, usually in a different state each year. Last year was Perth, the year before was Bendigo and next year it will be in Bathurst. Scquilters are a group for online quilters either living in Australia or New Zealand or living overseas. As usual I had a great five nights staying with my fantastic roomies, Lissa, Wendy and Mary-Anne.

We ate too much, drank too much, laughed, some of us did a tiny bit of sewing but probably more talking (or listening)

This is DJ block E6 Michelle's Medley which I finished at the airport BEFORE the retreat!

Did I mention shopped too much? This was the haul from Harbour Town, a DFO for those of you in Victoria.

Then we went shopping on the shop hop visiting six patchwork shops! I did manage to add 146 new pieces of civil war or 1800's reproduction fabric to the stash, going 1/4's with Mary-Anne, Lissa and Pam at the first shop then thirds with MA and Lissa at the next five shops so some of them are quite small but large enough for a DJ block or scrappy reproduction quilts. A few of them were also swaps at the Dear Jane get together so we didn't buy all of them!!!

I also added a couple of Kaffe Fassett's to my collection for Isabella's quilt and started a William Morris collection as we bought Michele Hill's book William Morris in Applique and a few of us decided on a challenge. It will be interesting to see if we manage to finish it.

Last but not least, I finally saw Adelaide's famous frog cakes at the airport on the way home!

Perth Spoils

Here's what I got in Perth! Lissa and I went halves in most of the civil wars. Some are 1/8's some are 1/4's if I wanted one and she already had it and vice versa and some are only pieces but if not enough for one of our blocks (she is doing Civil War Love Letters Quilt) then enough to go into a scrappy quilt. Below on the left are our CW pieces and on the right are other fabrics and Beatrix Potter cot quilt kit.

Below are the asian fabrics I bought $20 for 10 FQ's, WW and I got a different pack each and swapped as there were only a couple the same.

Some lovely wool tops I bought from Janine M for needlefelting.

Some Retros, Fresh Cut fabrics, quilt panel and some coordinates and quilt backs.

More photos from the Perth Retreat

There's one in every crowd!!! WW couldn't resist testing the beautiful thick green grass which was a lot greener than in this photo.

Lissa couldn't help herself. She had the tape but of course I was totally innocent and didn't help her at all when she wrapped it around WW's and MA's door. And it wasn't her fault that the housekeeper made the beds in our room (we were sharing a 2br apartment) but didn't clean the room with the caution tape on the doors!!! vbg

Some shots from Perth

Sunset from our window at Como . I didn't take my digital camera these are all snapshots from my mobile so some may not be as clear as I would like them. Lovely view we had!





On Monday the day of the shop hop we had lunch in beautiful Kings Park...it was so green those of us from Victoria couldn't believe it!




Flowering Gum Kings Park




Floral Clock Kings Park




Snapshots of Kings Park including the War Memorial. More shots coming soon of my spoils from Perth. I have to wait for the post to arrive as I sent one large express post satchel of clothes and a small one of fabric.

Back from Perth

What a wonderful time I had in Perth.

Thank you to everyone involved for making the retreat possible. Thanks also to all the scquilters I met or had a laugh or two with over the four or five days.

A special thank you to Lissa who organised the room and made WW, MA and I Lissa survival kits! Mine and Wendy's (Honeypot Quilting) was even made with bee and honeypot fabric, how organised is that!!

Thank you also to my retreat angel Nicole H.

Here are the last three gifts I received at the retreat. Some gorgeous beads quilters socks (which I had to take off to photograph) some lovely earrings and scissors which I forgot to photograph. Hope I remembered everything! Thanks again Nicole.

Thank you also to my mortal Rosemary for the lovely bag she made me. LOL we had some fun tricking her I think MA had her convinced in the end her mortal was Wendy which was my intention. You can have some good clues which could either be The Quilting B or Honeypot Quilting!