Tony and I are back home after a wonderful six weeks overseas. We have seen some wonderful places, great gardens and beautiful palaces. I am starting to get back into the swing of things and I preparing for the Quilting Cruise next February. There has been a lot of enquiries from ladies who would like to come from interstate and bringing their sewing machines. I have looked into taking sewing machines on the planes. They can be taken on as hand luggage and there are a couple of totes designed to carry machines as hand luggage on aircraft. Just Patchwork Tuncurry has the 'Tutto' bag for this purpose. Here is a link to their website if anyone is interested. http://www.justpatchwork.com.au/ I do also have some machines that I can take for interstate ladies but this is on a first in basis.
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.
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.Until next post. Happy crafting
Dorothy
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.
