Aussie quilters may recognise some of the faces in this photo from our Statler day. This group of machine quilters has been responsible for quilting an enormous number of quilts in total; some have been in business more than 10 years, and that's a lot of quilts in anybody's language. What a great group, we have such fun when we get together.

On Sunday Kaye took Dawn, Cheryl and I to Berrima Patchwork, where we managed to find a few scraps of fabric to add to the stash. Of course my batteries died, so all I have is a photo of the ouside of the shop. Inside it was warm, and full of fabric and quilters choosing material for their next project. It was a delicious way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Cheryl is very much like Mereth, organised and tidy and singleminded. For the last two days she chained herself to the sewing machine and as long as we kept cutting and ironing she didn't complain, but it was awful hard work keeping up with her. Dawn left yesterday, and within an hour I was moaning 'I miss Dawn already!!' because I couldn't work fast enough on my own. Which just goes to show, it's the cutting a pressing that take the time; sewing the pieces is really quick.

This is what 700+ nine-patches look like. I think we were a bit appalled when we added it all up. Each block takes 5 nine-patches. We are aiming for 42 blocks for each quilt, and we are about 10 blocks per quilt short of that; when we get home we will make up the rest from our own stashes, and send a set of our blocks to Kaye for her quilt.The quilt that inspired all this madness is from a book called The Quilter's Resource Book by Maggi McCormick Gorden, and it's a lovely book, about 2" thick and full of lovely photos. The scrappy border is wonderful, that will use up all the little leftovers nicely. My next task is to digitise the quilting design for Kaye, and come up with alternate ones for Cheryl and mine; Dawn is a designer herself, so I suppose she will invent her own. And next year we will have a little mini-show of the four quilts, finished. Should be fun.

Tomorrow we have plans to visit the Sydney quilt show, I'd better get the camera batteries charged for that. It promises to be a long day.

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My first post has taken nearly a week, as we were busy with the Trade show for the first two days, then recovering and getting ready for the Statler get together on Saturday. The internet at Camden has been down, which is very inconvenient. I haven't read my blog list for a week, it will take me forever to catch up.

The Finishing Touch booth looked very nice, and we caught up with lots of fellow machine quilters, and shop owners; I did a bit of buying for our little shop, and found some threads for Mereth to play with on Millhouse, so I had some fun besides doing the workshops.

I met up with the lovely Nic Bridges, who was teaching workshops also. She always looks fabulous, what a wonderful smile. I hope to catch up with her and Lisa Walton at the Sydney show on Wednesday. Kaye doesn't have a booth there this year, so we will just spend one day there and see the quilts and catch up with as many friends as possible.

The Statler get-together was fun and we learned a lot about the new software releases, and compared notes on how we do things. There were 9 laptops set up, with people concentrating very hard and trying to absorb all the new knowledge.It was a great day, and there were 15 of us at dinner that night. Kaye is such a superb hostess, I'm sure I couldn't seat that many people and feed them and keep them happy. Thanks Kaye!
Dawn and Cheryl (that's them in front of the laptop in the picture) and I have been staying since Tuesday, and to help earn our keep we offered to tidy up Kaye's fabric bins. At the same time we were looking through her books, and there was a gorgeous 9-patch that we all loved. None of us remember who suggested it, but somehow we came up with the idea of making it for Kaye; she agreed, but said only if we made blocks for ourselves as well. And so we've been sewing up a storm in every spare moment, working on our sets of blocks. We worked out a system and everyone had a job to do, and we've made great progress since this photo was taken. Kaye will have a new quilt without much effort on her part, and we've cleaned out a lot of scraps in her fabric bins. I'm channeling Mereth, and using up all the tiny offcut scraps to make totally scrappy blocks.

I've been sewing on Kaye's new baby, and it's a steep learning curve. It's such a lot of machine, and has so many functions that it takes me a while to get going, but it sews beautifully. I'd better enjoy this machine here, because I won't be getting one of my own for quite a while!

And lastly, a photo of Kaye's crazy quilt that she bought on Ebay. It's all silk and wool, dated 1886, and it's very beautiful, and very fragile. It's such a treat to be able to examine an antique quilt close up, and see the individual stitches and touch the fabric. I hope this beauty lasts another 100 years.

Internet willing, I'll be back tomorrow with another update.

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Here is Ms Millhouse, strapped into the back of the car for her journey to the city.

We had a busy weekend, spending time with Mereth's first-born and his partner, as well as meeting up with other Statler owners. Plus some shopping and socialising as well. I'm not used to so much activity, we lead a very quiet life here normally.

We had quite a few things on our list to do. Mereth's son Rob has always wanted my Camry, so I'm lending it to him for as long as he wants it. Does anyone else have a hard time letting go of their cars? I love my Cammy so much, I'd hate to sell her and never see her again. Anyway, she'd been in a neighbouring town for a week, for repairs, and on Friday we drove there in the Magna station wagon, then I drove Cammy to Adelaide and Mereth drove the other car. His name is Wilson; doesn't everyone name their cars?

We had to navigate our way to a Logistics depot in Port Adelaide and deliver Cammy, so she could be shipped over to Rob in Newcastle. I was so sad to let her go, but Rob will look after her.
Once that chore was off the list, and we were back in one car, we could go shopping!

Our camera batteries decided to die at the same time, so no photos of the second-hand shop we went to. It's called Hazel's, and is a shed just stuffed with things. I like ferreting through messy places, but it's almost toooo grubby. As soon as we leave we scrub our hands with the WetWipes in the car! This time I found an old plastic sewing box, but when I looked inside it was full of things from someone's medicine cabinet; squeezed out tubes of DencoRub and pill bottles and old combs and toothbrushes. Ugghhhh. I did find two needlework cushions that I rescued from the concrete floor; they should clean up nicely.

After that we stopped at Ikea of course, for a late, late lunch and lots of coffee. Yet again we ended up just leaving with practically nothing, too overwhelmed to choose what we wanted. One day we will have the time to stay there all day and actually decide on what to have. I adore that place, but it just defeats me.

Our other fun shopping experience was in the Chinese Supermarket on Grote Street, near the Central Markets. We wandered around marvelling at the different packages and strange items. I took a couple of photos, until Mereth told me it was rude and I shouldn't do it. So you can't see the packets of Pork Floss, or Ground Shrimp, or Dried Fish. Or the biggest tin of Curry Powder I've ever seen; you could have used it as a footstool!

I will be going back for some of this china, it was very nice, and not expensive.

Our Statler get together was fun, it's always good to see old mates and catch up with things. We were supposed to do a bit of training and learning, but it was much more pleasant to sit outside with wine and good food and good conversation.

Ms Millhouse had her spa treatment ( had her innards repacked with grease amongst other things) and suffered no ill effects from her little outing; she was back in the workroom stitching away today. She sounds different, a bit gruffer than before, and very no-nonsense. It's time to get stuck into that pile of tops that has accululated over the summer.
And in case you think that bright quilt of my daughter's has been on the frame all this time, we have zippered leaders; it's been unzipped and put aside while Mereth did several customer quilts. Today we zipped it back on and Mereth used the extra backing and batting to quilt another small top. I love our zippered leaders. Now to bind both of these and donate them.

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