The Second workshop I did at Conference was Ailie Snow’s “PhanTasy”. My theme was “Queens and Princesses” here are three of the six pages I did, these pictures are works in progress. Ailie uses Batik Flannel as her background and she supplied us with these. Have a look at her website her work is very inspiring. She was a lovely tutor although our class members were a bit ho hum and the way the seating was arranged was not conducive to chatting and interacting with others. There were a few ladies who, had we rearranged the class to be more interactive would have been very entertaining.

We met some wonderful ladies at the Conference and are looking forward to the next one in Hamilton in 2010.

I have been away from home for ten days and although I took my laptop – the motel where I was staying were charging an arm and a leg for internet access so I just didn’t do any blogging or surfing – only checking business emails … boring.

So onto more interesting things – the ANZEG (Association of New Zealand Embroiderers Guild) Conference. (Their website is a shocker but they are updating it in August and changing providers). The Queenstown Branch of the ANZEG sent two of us to, in Hastings, New Zealand (not UK). We travelled to Hastings via Christchurch (where our name was paged over the PA system – opps) we didn’t realise we had so little time to change planes. Then to Wellington where we shopped and stayed overnight, notice I said stayed and not slept – we had some drunk men trying to get into our room – hmmm not really what you would expect staying at one of the more upmarket hotels there. We left the next morning in a very very small plane to arrive in Napier. We were collected from the airport by a lovely Guild member there and taken by car to Hastings (20 minute drive). We spent the afternoon and following day exploring Hastings and Havelock North. We really enjoyed Havelock, a little village with boutique shops – just lovely. We had two days of Conference. A presentation by a member who had received a study grant and travelled to the Royal School of Needlework in the UK. The key note speaker was Carol Naylor – a machine embroiderer from the UK – she was a very entertaining speaker and had a power point presentation of her work.

Look what we woke up to on Saturday morning. Beautiful eh.

My Studio is an absolute tip – a definate non-creativity zone. So over the next few months (thats how long I anticipate it will take) I plan to sort, tidy and sift through the “stuff” and purge what I don’t need. I started with my beads. Here is a before and after shot.

A friend and I travelled down to Invercargill at the end of last week to visit a “Quilt Shop” called Kitz and Thingz here are some photos of the “Shop”. It was a house on a diary farm in the middle of nowhere. But what an Aladdan’s cave. I didn’t get a picture of Bedroom 1 (sorry, was initially too overwhelmed to think about photos). All rooms had lovely book cases loaded with fabrics. The children’s room looks small in the photo – this would only be a quarter of what is in there. These pictures only show the tip of the iceberg. There were four Bedrooms containing:

Bedroom 1: The largest range of Flannels I have seen, Batiks and Asian fabrics.

Bedroom 2: Amy Butler, Valorie Wells, a huge selection of Black and Whites, numerous wide fabrics for backings, patterns, jelly rolls, charm packs, and a massive selection of bright and colourful fabrics.

Bedroom 3: Jinny Beyer, Country fabrics, patterns, jelly rolls, etc.

Bedroom 4: Childrens Fabrics including flannels and a selection of lovely toys.

The Hallway: near the entrance – Christsmas Fabrics, down the hallway further Fabric Panels.

The Lounge: Quilting Supplies, other bits and pieces

The Dining Room: Filled with bolts of fabric at half price!!

Needless to say we boosted their bank balance at the expense of our own…… now to find time to get to the machine and turn the purchases into something. Don’t go to this shop with your husbands – unless of course they are willing to part company with their $$$, and be prepared to spend some time. We were there for 3 hours!!!

We also went to a little shop in St Andrews Street, Invercargill – of which I cannot remember the name. It was something like “New Vintage” It was tiny and very “Amy Butler“. Quite lovely. I purchased some lovely linen to make a skirt – and I go the new Amy Butler book.