Yoo hoo......I'm back!

Wow, what a whirlwind trip to Cairns but I loved every minute of it (despite the nodding off a few times 'cause I was toooo sleepy!! *woops*)
We left home at 2.30am and drove north for 5 and a half hours, stopping for fuel for both the car and ourselves!!!  It has been so dry at our place for so long, that it was welcome to see the clouds and rain along the way.....I took some photos to show you....check it out...

Looks a little like my bargello, don't ya think??? LOL

Once we got up past Ingham, we started seeing lots of bananas in all stages of growth.

I met many wonderful ladies at Kays Fabrics Inaugural Patchwork, Quilting and Machine Embroidery Seminar Weekend and I learnt so many new things (and spent waaaaay too much money).  One lovely lady was Susan from the Pattern Place and I found out she is a blogger too! Check out her blog here.  Susan has some amaaaaaazing patterns that look extremely complicated but are really easy....called 'Walk on the Wild Side', she has patterns for giraffes, apes, elephants, zebras and others and she even showed us how to create quilts using gold leaf......absolutely gor-geeee-ous!!!  I didn't buy anything the first day...thought I'd be strong and sleep on it, but when I went back on Sunday to buy the funky zebra.....she'd sold out *boo hoo*!  Oh well, just have to go to the website!!!!  Here's a picture of some of Susan's work...

what do you think of the wonderful quilting on the pink version of the zebra....isn't it  delicious???

Here are the goodies we got on arrival.

and here are the goodies I snavelled up.....(at a greatly discounted price.....in case hubby's checking!!)

Not being a machine embroiderer, and knowing that quite a few of the seminars were around this topic,  I vowed this would not dampen my interest.... I looked at all the designs with enquiring eyes and many of the patterns I think I could modify for applique  or stitcheries with colouring  (Inktense pencils were often discussed in the classes)

Have a look at some of these Jenny and Simon Haskins beauties to see what I mean...

We left during the afternoon tea as we knew we had a long trip ahead of us so I missed the drawing of the Janome....I didn't hear from them so.......maybe they forgot to call me????

I have so much more to share, but I'll leave that for another post.

Thanks to Kay and Sandra for a wonderful weekend....I learnt soo much, it opened my eyes to many more possibilities.....I tell you, if you get the chance to spend a weekend at a quilting seminar/retreat/workshop......DO IT!!  There's nothing like it to get your mojo going again!!!

Now, if they ring you by mistake and tell you Wendy's won the Janome.....just let them know I'm here!!!!!!

Sugary hugs

XX Wendy B 'o)

forgot to mention.....good luck to all in the big MC tomorrow.....hope your gee gee comes first!!!!