The AQC 2015

I went to the opening day of the Australasian Quilt Convention yesterday. I mainly went because I wanted to have a look at a new sewing machine and there are many of the suppliers with stands there. I don't need a lot of the things that the really big, fancy machines do so I targeted my looking.

I spent quite a lot of time at the Husqvarna stand, getting good one-on-one attention. I really like the machine I was shown. I decided not to go to all the other stands as I would just get overwhelmed with the differences that will be fairly minimal. My old machine is a Husqvarna (bought in 1982, we think) and I have been very happy with it. So I am hoping that the company still has the same good quality workmanship (workwomanship?).

After that I had lunch and wandered around the stalls, wending my way to the exhibition. There was a lot of beautiful stuff on sale! But I had decided that I do not need anything new at this stage except, possibly, a new sewing machine so I didn't look very closely at the stalls.

There were several exhibitions on display. I started looking really closely at the works, taking photos and trying to be a good textile student. But there were so many that I then decided to just enjoy the quilts and take the occasional photo.

Here are some images that I got.
Of course, I had to take a photo of the beautiful building. Apparently it is the only building created for international exhibitions in the 19th century that is still used for exhibition.

The True Blue Challenge (you can see all of them here).

Denise Griffiths

I took this of the group, mainly because the face was not at all obvious from close-up. 

A selection of Jan Irvine-Nealie quilts.
I remember going to a talk by her at the Victorian Embroiderers Guild and was awestruck by her work, as I was this time too.

Then there was the Gallipoli Quilt, a 12 metre installation of quilts, also amazing.  All done by the one person, Lucy Carroll.

Of course, there were many other quilts there, this is just a small sample.

I found some of the quilts inspiring and can't wait to start playing around with ideas - which enthusiasm may well dry up once I have a working machine again.

Taking pictures of flowers

I am going to do a workshop soon with Jane Sassaman.  It is based on designing from nature and we have been told to bring images of flowers.  When I heard that my sister was going to the Melbourne International Flower and Garden show, I thought I had better tag along. The timing seemed to be perfect.
The weather forecast was for sunny and warm, which it was.  Sunscreen slathered on, we took our time wandering around all the displays and stalls.
It is a very big show, taking up the Carlton Gardens and the Royal Exhibition Building.  There were a lot of people there too.

I took photos until my batteries ran down - I really should have listened to myself when I said I hoped they wouldn't run out today!

I wasn't that disappointed as I had taken quite a few photos and was starting to think that maybe I should start thinking about what I wanted to do at the workshop.  I need to choose a colour palette and focus on some of the flower photos I have, not take millions.  But it is so hard, there are so many beautiful shapes and colours.

Not having my camera working also made me look at the show rather than rush around only trying to take photos of flowers.  Isn't it strange how we stop looking when we have a camera, we focus instead on trying to get the best shots.
Fortunately I had my phone and could take the emergency, must have, photos on that.  The ones inside the building are from my phone.
So I obviously didn't just enjoy it, I still had to take photos.  Must try to get over that - but then it would be so much harder to blog.

There were lots of stalls and displays using vegetation as well as art shows, jewellery based on flowers, craft work and other things I ran out of energy to see. Everything had a flower or garden theme of course.