The Castlemaine Applique Group's First Exhibition.

 Time has been moving too quickly for me but I have finally loaded some photos of our first Exhibition held by my Applique Group last weekend. This is a group of very talented quilters and there were so many fabulous quilts to see that I walked around the Exhibition several times and still felt like I hadn't taken it all in. We had 1,300 visitors and raised $10,000 for a local Oncology Unit to purchase equipment. Visitors came from London, Norway, and quilters flew in from interstate and some even came on bus tours. The response was wonderful and the best part for me was the opportunity to catch up with friends as well as meet new ones. It was lovely to meet Carole from the Wheels on the Warrandyte Bus blog as well as Lesley and Kaye from Rochester. Carole attended with her sister Judy and it was lovely to finally meet up as we are both stitching the Chester County Criswell quilt by Sharon Barnes of Two Bits Patches. Carole, Judy and I did meet again at Threadbear, the local patchwork shop and we may or may not have purchased a few more bits and pieces.
Corliss owns the shop and it is one of my favourite quilting shops as she keeps a very good selection of reproduction fabrics as well as the Quiltmania books and lots of great patterns. It was packed all weekend with eager shoppers so the ladies were exhausted by the end of the weekend but I think they also enjoyed meeting so many quilting friends, both old and new.

My "Mrs William's and I" quilt. The pattern is by Corliss of Threadbear and is named "A Tribute to Mrs Williams", a reproduction of a quilt made in the 1800s.

 I took lots of photos of parts of quilts so you can see closeup the fine work of the stitching and quilting.

I was busy on duty and didn't get all the details on the quilts on this camera but you can see lots of lovely photos on lots of blogs such as Carole's, Threadbear, Every Stitch blog (you can see me stitching in one of the photos here) http://everystitchblog.blogspot.com.au and I'm sure there will be many others you can find if you use Google.
I hope you enjoy the photos and if you attended the Exhibition that you enjoyed seeing such a collection of beautiful appliqued quilts all in one place. It was lovely to meet so many keen quilters as well as people who are about to start their quilt journey after being inspired by their visit. It was lovely that quite a few ladies came over to see the hexagons I was stitching and thought that they would like to start making some too.
   The weekend was over much too quickly but I hope to show more photos soon. In the meantime I have to finish off my current quilt in the next two days for another Exhibition the first weekend in April.
 Thanks for stopping by.
Hugs, Jan Mac