Country Patchwork Daytripping

The Flyer said "Bring a hat and a chair". An invitation to an outback garden day, no, nothing like it. Come to the first open day for a new patchwork shop "Cow paddocks Patchwork Crafts n Coffee". Julie Latcham, a young enthusiastic patchworker and teacher on a property near Dulacca in Southern Queensland has set up shop in a Donga beside her house, where she also teaches a variety of workshops, has a mail order service (a must for isolated patchworkers) and fabric clubs.
Eleven members from the Mitchell Kenniff Country Quilters set off early for the 3 hour drive. We didn't fill the cars up with quilts for show and tell because we would need the space for our purchases. Some of us needed a fabric fix.
Even Julie was surprised at the response expecting about 50 people. Over 100 patchworkers from the Miles, Chinchilla, Condamine, Dulacca, Wallumbilla, Taroom, Wandoan, Glenmorgan, Mitchell and Charlewille areas as well as one from Barcaldine made the journey. It was a wonderful day with demonstrations of new products, competitions, lucky draws, informative presentations by a prize winning quilter and professional machine quilter both from the Glenmorgan district, inspirational show and tell and great food supplied by the local Dulacca Kindergarten and Playgroup mothers.
Being able to swap ideas and information with other quilting groups was part of the experience as well.
There is no need to tell you that Julie's shop was greatly depleted of stock when everyone left, however, I'm sure that her very diverse range of fabrics, patterns, threads and notions would quickly be replenished.
Our long trip home was full of chatter about the great time we had and how we will definitely make the effort to go next year as this will now be an annual event. We all agreed that those fold up chairs take up a lot of room in our car boot.
Written by Gary Burey.

Gary is a member of Amby QCWA and Piecemakers and also a member of Kenniff Country Quilters - Mitchell.