April 8th, 2013

 

We have had a great weekend here in Bordertown at The Sanctuary. Judy B shared her great knowledge of the Electric Quilt programme with us. It is just amazing what you can do with this software. Just wish I had more time to spend playing.

Below you can see the work area, with Judy B at the head, her laptop hooked up to the TV screen so that we could all see what she was doing. Michele has her back to us, and you can just see that she is stitching. There is always someone who leaves the preparation for a workshop to the last minute, (including me) and she found that her purchased EQ7 was not compatible with her Mac computer! But she came anyway, and spent her time stitching a project that needed to be finished soon, shared her design knowledge, made our coffees, and made sure we drank enough water!! And absorbed a lot of the instruction as well. Thankyou Michele.

I look forward seeing what Lois will design for our next Mystery Quilt weekend retreat with all the new knowledge that she has.

Above and below you can see the real quilt and the original design on the screen.

Michele and Delwyn below, both stitching in the evening. Delwyn came from  Warracknabeal, where she manages the lovely patchwork shop, Quilters Harvest. Maybe there will be a new quilt design available at Quilters Harvest soon, designed by Delwyn??

The weather was just so lovely, that most meals were eaten outside in the pergola, listening to the local birdlife, which included the neighbours rooster! We were serenaded during the day as well as the early morning about 5am. (Michele thought this was a tad early!)

  It was the end of daylight saving for our state, and I remembered to shift my clock at home back on Saturday evening so that I would arrive on time Sunday morning for the bacon and egg brekkie, superbly cooked by Pat. BUT, I managed to slip up at lunch time, as my mobile phone time does not change automatically, and I forgot this. Thus I started cooking the salmon, and got the query, what time are we having lunch?? Then realised it was really only 11.30!! But they thought the stomachs were still on the old time and we had an early lunch!

Michele entertained us with a really good joke! This was the action for a pair of pliers!

And this is Pat demonstrating some stitching to Michele.

All in all it was a great time, not only learning about Electric Quilt, but also lots of discussion about computers and how to do things, about blogging, about photos, about copyright issues, and so much more.

One girl had EQ5, and the others EQ7, but Judy managed to find ways on EQ5 to do what the others were doing. Another weekend has been planned for later in the year, and Judy B is happy to teach anyone with EQ5, EQ6, or EQ7, and the classes will be limited to about 5 students, so that everyone may benefit. If you are interested I would love to hear from you. The next EQ retreat is scheduled for October 25-27.

Thankyou to the girls who came, it’s always a great weekend. Now I better start the machine and get a quilt going, and reply to some emails before I go to a committee meeting at 6pm. Looking forward now to another weekend ahead with the longarm quilters.

Enjoy your day,

Blessings, From Jude