Vicky's Monday Night Quilting Group from Albury/Wondanga have a quilting weekend at Russellee BnB Craft Retreats.

Russellee offers a venue for quilters, scrapbookers or other crafters to indulge in their passion.  We provide accommodation and organise meals.  This allows you the have a weekend to concentrate on you passion and we will look after you.

Russellee BnB Craft Retreats Newsletter

Russellee has had a very busy six months and I would like to thank all those who attended one of our retreats either scrapbooking or patchwork. 

The year started off with our first UFO retreat for the year in February.  This was followed by the 3^rd Australian Quilting Cruise. Ladies came from all parts of the country as well as five from New Zealand.

We arrived home from the Cruise on the 9^th March and this was followed by our first Scrapbooking Retreat for the year. Helen Godden fitted her ‘Crack Pots’  workshop into her busy schedule in March. Eleven ladies from around the area as well as one travelling from Victoria.  We thank Helen and her mum for doing this for us.

Sandy’s Quilters from Canberra also came in March. This was their fifth year of coming.  To finish off March I had my sister’s, Pam, 70^th  birthday at Russellee.

Laraine and I took some time out and attended the Norfolk Island Quilting Retreat with Michelle Yea.  Both Tony and Bill came with us as we had a very enjoyable 10 days of quilting and sightseeing.  Norfolk is a beautiful place.

I made and effort and finished a project of raw edge appliqué and entered it into the Tumut Art Show in the fibre art section and to my surprise it won and I also sold it.  I find it very difficult to get the time to finish projects for competition and it was hard going getting the piece finished but it was worth the effort.

A group of lovely ladies from Sydney came for a five day retreat at the end of April.  Some of these ladies have been on our cruises and one was also at Norfolk.  It was wonderful being able to catch up with them again.

Robyn Taylor from Wagga came over and gave these ladies a workshop on her Fabric Mosaic technique.  They also invited Roz to join in and the resulting pictures were stunning.

In May a group of ladies came for their third Mothers and Daughters Card Making weekend.  This group come from different areas of the state and use the weekend to catch up with each other and make some beautiful cards.

I also had a thread painting weekend in May.  It has been three years since I presented one.  Had ladies travel from Sydney, Mittagong, Wagga and The Rock as well as local.  A small group but the results were great.

The end of May saw Tony, James, Liam and I head off to Uluru for a road trip. (Tony’s idea.) It was a long, long way but the scenery was spectacular.  I have lots of inspirational photos for thread painting and hope have one done in time for the Desert Sands Exhibition in August.

Back home and another UFO Retreat.  This Retreat was a bit different to our other  UFO quilting retreats as we had two knitters and a lovely teenager working on an appliqué project for her HSC.  It was great to see the younger generation interested in sewing.

I am working on two quilts for the Canberra Quilt Show in August.  Nothing like a bit of pressure to get things moving.  I promised myself that this year I would enter some of my work into shows.  Have managed one and two more to go. (I hope).

As to the rest of the year.  July is fairly quite as far as Retreats go but August has two retreats plus I am doing two craft shows to promote the cruise and the retreats.

October is our Bail Quilting Retreat.  We still have one spot left on this.  Two ladies are coming from New Zealand to join us at Bail.

 

I am planning to have another UFO Retreat 7 – 9 November and a Thread Painting workshop 6-7 December.  In  between I have a scrapbooking retreat plus three private retreats.

The second half is going to be busy but life is best when busy.

 

Take Care

Dorothy

 

Card Making Retreat November

Our card making retreat the 15 - 17 November is filling fast.  The cost is $225 and includes two nights accommodation, meals and two card making workshops.  This is the first time that we have run this retreat.  If you are interested contact me either by email russeldr@bigpond.com or phone 02 69474216

Dorothy

Wagga Craft Alive Weekend

Last weekend saw the Wagga Craft Alive event.  I again had a stall to promote the Russellee Craft Retreats and the Quilting Cruise.  This was a far more successful weekend for all attending then the washed out Griffith Craft Alive and the interesting Wodonga Craft Alive.

This time I went on my own to set up on the Thursday.  Friday saw a large crowd pass through the door.  Over the course of the weekend 4600 people attended the show and keep everyone very busy.  Again I demonstrated free machining and this was very well received.

The team at Craft Alive staged a quilt exhibition in conjunction with the show.  Forty quilts from parts of NSW and Victoria were on display.  The visiting public were asked to vote for the best in show.  To my surprise and delight my quilt, ‘The Brumby’, inspired by a photo of Batlow photographer, Kris Daley, won first place.  Not only did I achieve first place but another quilt titled ‘My Cats’ received third place.  To receive these two places out of 40 wonderful quilts was an honour.

On the Saturday Kaye Snow joined me to help man the stall.  Kaye is a wonderful card maker and we spoke to several ladies about the November Card Making Retreat.  Sunday my wonderful husband, Tony, came as my helper and to assist in the packing up.  Overall the weekend was a great success.  I sold a lot of fabric and kits.  One lady on the Sunday purchased all the cat fabric that I had.

The thread painted picture that I created on the Friday also sold and I have since sold my large picture of a thread painted cat.  I am also holding a Thread Painting Retreat in November. By mid morning of the third day we run out of retreat brochures and I had to send Tony to get more printed at Office Works.

We had a lot of interest in our Cruise for February.  A lot of the cards re the cruise that I had were taken and the balcony special on at the moment was well received.  Time will tell if we have some bookings from this weekend for both the cruise and the craft retreats at Russellee.

Another interesting point is that Chris Dowell, one of our Cruise tutors, has her quilt ‘Just the Two of Us’ in the current addition of Down Under Quilts.  We still have places available on the cruise.  If you would like to come and join us please contact me or Lorelle.  Our emails are on the right of the blog.

Until next time

Dorothy

Wodonga Craft Alive

Kaye and I travelled to Wodonga last Thursday to set up for the Wodonga Craft Alive event.  The venue was the Leisure Centre and provided all the stall holders plenty of space.  We managed to get our stall set up with all our display visible. This is no easy feat as the space is limited. I also had the use of a row of great display boards for my quilts.  Friday seen us there bright and early for the arrival of the many visitors to the event.  Both Kaye and I took along projects to demonstrate to the visitors.  Kaye had here beautiful cards and I took along fabric and threads to use with the Bernina machine.  I demonstrated Thread Painting.  This proved to be a very good draw card to our stand.

Over the weekend I had a lot of interest in the Retreats that I have planned for the coming months.  Also a lot of questions were asked about our Quilting Cruise next February.  I sold some patterns, jelly rolls and a quilt over the three days.  This was a nice bonus to the venture.

I shall be attending the Wagga Craft Alive at the beginning of August.  Each event that I attend I learn something about how to improve the stall set up and next time will try a different approach.  I will still be demonstrating the Threat Painting.  I will be holding a two day Thread Painting weekend in November.  Since I have been home I have had some ladies book into the retreats.  This is what the weekends are all about.  The promoting of Russellee BnB's Craft Retreats.

Until next time

Dorothy

Small Group Craft Retreats

Come and join one of Russellee BnB Tumut’s Small Group Craft Retreats.  We cater from groups of 4 – 12 people.  We have just had a Scrapbooking Retreat with four great ladies. One of the ladies was new to Scrapbooking and is now hooked. On the Saturday  one of the regular ladies also attended.  This small group had a wonderful time and the weekend was a great success.

 

 

Our September Scrapbooking Retreat is at capacity with 12 ladies coming from Canberra, Cooma, Wagga and the local areas. Our October Bail Quilting Retreat is also at capacity. Ladies attending this are coming from Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra plus one from Griffith.

If you have a small group of Crafters, Quilters, Patchworkers, Scrapbookers, Painters or Cardmakers and would like create your own retreat contact me for more information.

Dorothy

Quilt Display at Russellee BnB

My son is always growing plants and has a large nursery at the back of Russellee.  He works at the Landcare Nursery.  Tumut had the Festival of the Falling Leaf on this weekend and we decided to have a Nursery and Quilt Display at Russellee.  This was a last minute decision and we set up the display in the garden. 

 

I did not realise how many quilts that I actually still had.  Quilts going back 30 years.  I also had quilt tops that just needed to be quilted. In all I had 32 quilts on display. A lot of them are quilts that I had made as examples for workshops.

My wonderful husband, Tony, set up make shift stands with rails and ladders.  The weather was perfect and the display looked great.  On Saturday we had many visitors.  The information centre asked if we could do Devonshire Teas in the garden.  This went very well. I even sold a small quilt which was a bonus.

I asked my lovely friend, Kaye, to bring some of her beautiful cards as a plug for our Scrapbooking Retreats.  We also promoted our Bali trip and the 3^rd Australian Quilting Cruise.  Plus I handed out programs for both the Quilting Retreats and Scrapbooking Retreats for the rest of the year.  If any one would like one of these email me and I shall send you one.

For something that was a last minute thing for the Festival it was a great promotional weekend for Russellee BnB and our retreats.

 

Until next time

Dorothy

UFO Quilting Retreat

Last weekend Russellee had seven wonderful ladies at the April UFO Retreat.  Ladies came from Canberra, Narrandera, Henty and locally.  There was much laughter amongst the sewing.  The quilts that were brought along to be finished (or nearly finished) were marvellous.  The beautiful work that quilters bring never ceases to amaze me.  The diversity of patterns and fabric available to quilters, both hand and machine, today is fantastic.

 

My sister’s birthday was on the Sunday.  She has not been very well recently and my brother-in-law brought her out for lunch with the ladies.  We had a cake for her and it cheered her up immensely.

This weekend I have a group of card makers from Wagga in.  These ladies have booked Russellee to have a weekend way to allow them to get together to do their card making.  No cooking or cleaning and great company.

 Until next time

Dorothy