October has been a busy month. Last weekend Russellee had a UFO Quilting Retreat. Six ladies addtended this retreat and it was a great three days. Lots of quilting, lots of great food and lots of talking. I enjoyed this weekend very much as I was able to sew a quilt myself. I had the fabric for a few years in my stash and our Alaskan trip inspired me to get it out and make a quilt. I was please with the results.Most of the month has been organising kits and ordering fabric for the Quilting Cruise in February. We have 27 ladies coming on the curise at the moment. I did not realise the amount of effort that goes into putting together kits for 30 ladies. I have almost finished the landscape workshop that I am doing on the curise. Most of the fabric arrived last week with only one to come. I shall post it on the blog as soon as I quilt and bind it.
Next year is shaping up to being a busy one with quilting and scrapbooking retreats as well as the Quilting Cruise. I have lots of ideas for workshops. I am trying to find different tecniques and new products for these workshops.
Russellee will be having a Quilting Retreat 9-11 March 2012. this will be a Dance of the Dragonflies quilt designed by Annette Ornelas. We will be also having a UFO retreat the 4-6 May 2012.Both these retreats have bookings already. If you are interested in them contact me by email russeldr@bigpond.com and I will send out information on these retreats.
The Scrapbooking Retreat 2-4 March is almost at capacity. This retreat was almost at capacity within a couple of days of announcing it.
If you have a group of quilters or scrapbookers that are looking for a venue for their own weekend away contact me and we will see what we can do for you.
Until next time
Dorothy
Carol's 'Boy Layout'
Bridget's 'Sketch Layout'
Edrom Lodge Ladies
The quilting cruise was run by Stitchin' Heaven from Texas. There were 48 ladies attending the classes (including five from Australia) with three instructors. They divided the group into two. I was previliged to meet Toni Whitney whose work I have admired and have I completed some of her designs. She is a wonderful lady and a great teacher.
The two ports of call in Alaska, Juno and Skaway, both had beautiful quilt shops. It was very hard to resist buying heaps of fabric. I did manage to restrict myself and buy only a small amount. In Alaska Kaye and I did a rafting tour down one of the rivers. This was not white water rafting but gentley gliding down the river. We saw fantastic countryside and lots of eagles. We did manage to see three black bears on our trip.
I took my sewing machine all the way to Alaska as a learning experience to carrying a machine on aircraft. The machine travelled well. I carried it as hand luggage and had no problems with Australian, Cadanian or US customs. The machine travelled in the overhead locker with out any problem.
After the cruise we bused our way back to Vancouver for a couple of days before returning home. We sayed in a BnB which was in a central position to the main part of Vancouver. We walked to English Bay and met a local quilter sitting in the park by the bay hand quilting. She said that she often came there to quilt.
Now that we are home I am concentrating on organising a UFO Quilting Retreat at 
I also have two great design walls from Brindabell Quilting Systems that Iwill be taking on the cruise. These great walls come in three different sizes and fold up into a carry bag for easy transporting.
When I left school I attended TAFE colleges and started several years of study in various areas of sewing. I have certificates of proficiency in pattern-making, dressmaking and a distinction in advanced commercial needlecraft. These qualifications and practical experiences have led me to kae up teaching of quilting and fabric embellishment. Free machining being my favourite are of machine sewing. 
I am currently a part time TAFE teacher and have been for the past twenty years. I started my TAFE proffession as a Advanced Comercial Needlecraft Certificate teacher when a staff member went on long service leave. Ihave been there ever since. However, as most TAFE collages no longer teach sewing I retrained and became a Business Services teacher.
Around nine years ago we sold our fram and bought a very large run down hous on the outskirts of Tumut, NSW. We renovated the house and turned it into a bed and breakfast. There were plenty of large rooms in our home for me to be able to start pachwork and quilting workshops. These wrokshops led to the running of livein retreats, both patchwork and scrapbooking. thanks to my sisters passion for scrapbooking.
Over the years I have attended numerous workshops with well know teachers bothe from Australia and overseas. They include Angela Madden from England, Vynthia England from the USA as well a learning a lot of techniques from Sharon Pederson from the USA. I have enjoyed a great workshop with Gloria Loughman of Australia.
I love many areas of machine patchwork. From strip piecing, to traditiobnal blocks, bargello, photos on fabric and applique. My favourite areas are machine embroidery and raw edge applllque. Landscaape quilts are of a particular interest to me. The variety of beautiful fabrics on the market today lend themselves to this areas of quilt making.I don't class myself as a quilt artist but as a quilt teacher.
I have a passion for sharing new techniques with students in my workshops. I encourage students to develop these techniques and create their own great quilts. Having patience is something I have plenty of.Three of my quilts have featured in 'Down Under Quilts' and Australian Patchwork and Quilting'. I would love to enter more of my quilts into the many competitions but find that teaching doesn't always allow me to meet the deadlines for these competitions. this doesn't stop me from planning quilts for cometitions!
I love to sew, to create, and to learn easier and sometimes quicker ways to achieve a great result. As Angela madden said "If sewing is not successful and fun... why do it?"
I gave the ladies a page to do before the retreat and bring it along. This was a page on themselves. I was overwhellemed by the beautiful layouts that resulted from this challenge. Raewyn did a great job of journaling on her layout. I was very impresses with the book she added to the layout.
In all there were three classes and three challanges over the weekend. Kaye Snow conducted the Saturday afternoon class in different techniques of inking your own papers. She showed five different techniques using Tim Holtz inks. There was a choice of two colour ways. It was about a 50 50 choice in the colour ways. This class was held in three groups.
After the classes were completed the challenge was to make a layout using these papers. the results were stunning.
We also had a sketch challenge and a kit challenge. The kit challenge had papers and colours that the ladies may not have chosen themselves and the results suprised them. Beautiful layouts.
I would like to thank Tarra Orr from Canada for allowing me to use one of her layouts as a class. 
Sandy also put forward the idea of doing a Quilting Cruise. I passed this onto Lorelle of Crafting Cruises and the idea is being followed up. Shall keep you posted.
