20-23rd September 2018
The Australian Machine Quilting Festival is dedicated to providing inspiration, education and encouragement to all machine quilters that own a longarm, midarm and/or a domestic sewing machine. Come & join us in our new venture to grow & learn about machine quilting!







Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Class Registration & Advertising Opportunities

Class Registrations
Class Registrations will go live on the website on July 12th, how exciting is that??? We will also have a Program of Events available in PDF form for download direct from the website at this time. Our plan is to send a hard copy of the Program to various groups so that we can get the information to as many people as possible. If you are in a sewing group, or know of anyone that may be interested it would be a great help if you could share this information with them.
Program of Events The Program of Events is the basis for the Show Program that will be included in your Registration Bags and also available at "Festival". We would like to offer everyone the opportunity to advertise in the program, it is an excellent chance to target a specific audience with your new products and/or services. You can supply an advert in colour for the online show program, however, the printed program will be in Black & White, please keep this in mind when designing your advertisement; the program will be A4 in size. The cost of advertising in the Program is as follows;
  • Single line listing $30
  • 1/4 Page $75
  • 1/2 Page $150
  • Full Page $250

The advertisement must be supplied in a completed format, ie PDF - NO artwork will be undertaken by AMQF. Please register your interest for advertising, by 31st July, via email.

Registration Bags
The Registration Bag is a lovely laptop style conference bag and will be given to every registered student. There is an advertising option available to you for the price of $220 (inc GST) to have your logo printed on the bags. There is only room for 10 logos to be printed on the bag and at this stage 3 people have taken advantage of this offer, 7 available . This is a great way to advertise as the bags will be carried by students throughout "Festival" and in use long after. Please contact Sharon for further information.
Bag Inclusions
You may wish to have a flyer, business card and/or discount voucher added to the bag to reach students to encourage them to shop with you. The cost of this option is $50 (inc GST) and you would need to provide us with the inclusions no later than 10th September.
Another opportunity you may like to consider is to include product in the Registration Bags and/or Attendee Packages. This can be organised at no cost to you except to supply sufficient product to be included in either every Registration Bag or just the Attendee Packages. This is ideal for those that have products with their business name on them or sample sized items that are useful and also advertise your products. Sample spools of thread, rulers, patterns, tape measures, gadgets etc would be a fantastic addition to the bags. We have three pattern designers that have taken advantage of this opportunity and are donating a pattern, each valued around $15, to be included in every Attendee Package.
Attendee Package
The Attendee Package was released on May 28th and the response has been incredible. These packages include;
  • Registration Fee
  • Entry to Quilt Show & Vendor Mall (4 days)
  • Conference Bag including pad, pen, magazines, vouchers patterns and much, much more
  • AMQF Commemorative Badge
  • 3 metres of wide backing fabric
  • Listing in Show Catalogue
Cost is $100.00 (inc GST) , value is over $230.00. There are still packages available for purchase, to register your interest please email
Quick Quarter Spotlight Demonstrations
"Quick Quarters" will be making their debut at AMQF. Quick Quarters will be a 15 minute timeslot in which you can showcase any product, service, technique etc that you wish to get out into the quilting community. These timeslots will be available throughout the weekend commencing at 10am and concluding at 5pm Saturday and Sunday and 3pm on Monday. Quick Quarters will cost $30 per demo and will take place on the main stage in the Vendor Mall and Quilt Show area and held every 30 mintues. The program of demonstrations will be published in the Show Program that all attendees will receive at the door or in their registration bags. You can download the registration form for Quick Quarters from the website now.
Commemorative Badge Sponsor - $500 (one only available)
For purchasing this sponsorship you will receive,
  • Your company logo on the onsite signage
  • PA announcements recognising your company as the sponsor of the badges
  • Company name and logo in the Program stating your level of sponsorship
  • Listing on the AMQF website and blog, including company name & logo with a link to your website
  • 1/2 Page Advertisement in the Show Program (sponsorship needs to be confirmed before 31 July 2010)

Until next time......93 days and counting,

Sharon & Tracey

Saturday, June 19, 2010

AMQF in Sydney

The journey begins.......... Tracey, Sarah (Tracey's daughter) and I drove to Sydney last Thursday June 10th, leaving South Australia at 6am in wet, foggy conditions. It was a long way but the drive was an easy one, particularly for Sarah and me, as we only had to keep Tracey awake by continually feeding her and topping her up with coffee.

We arrived at Jugiong, NSW around 7pm and spent the night, leaving the next morning around 8am. We headed for the Goulburn Bakery for a tasty egg and bacon roll with coffee. What a fantastic bakery - reasonable prices and a very welcoming open fire - if you're ever passing I'd recommend a quick exit off the freeway to indulge.We arrived at our destination around noon so that AMQF could have its first public outing, at the Quilt & Craft Expo. The Expo was held over 2 days in the beautiful Grand Pavilion at Rosehill Gardens, Sydney, NSW.

The response from those attending the Show was very encouraging and we'd like to thank everyone that stopped by to say hello, pick up leaflets and get more information on coming to South Australia for "Festival" in October. It was lovely catching up with "old" friends and meeting new ones and sharing the excitement that is AMQF.

Just before we left for Sydney confirmation was received that Anne Bright will be coming to teach at Festival and will also have a booth in the Vendor Mall. Anne owns and operates Anne Bright Designs and produces her incredibly large range of patterns in both digital and paper format, visit http://annebright.com/ Anne is an extremely enthusiastic dynamo and I'm sure she never sleeps, she is very creative and her ideas for designs seem positively endless. A full list of Anne's classes are available on the website http://amqfestival.com.au/
The initial response to the Attendee Packages has been fantastic and we'd like to answer a few of the questions we have received about the package inclusions.
  • Firstly, the package includes the $60.00 Registration Fee. This fee will be payable by all students nominating for classes. This fee not only helps towards teachers fees and expenses, staff time, supplies and equipment but also offers benefits to students. These benefits include 4 days admission into the show and vendor mall, and also a fabulous tote bag complete with goodies including magazines from Meander Publishing.
  • In addition to the above, the Attendee Package includes a Commemorative Badge, at least 3 full patterns, 3m of wide backing fabric, a listing in the show catalogue and a few other surprises.
  • The value of the Attendee Package exceeds $230 - at $100 the package is fantastic value!
  • There are a limited number of the packages available, to avoid disappointment please register your interest by contacting Sharon.

A list of our Sponsors is listed on both this blog and the website. We are very appreciative of all those that have offered sponsorship in various forms as it would be impossible for us to host an event such as AMQF without such generosity, please support their businesses whenever you can.

If you, or anyone you know, would like to be involved with AMQF in the capacity of a sponsor please don't hesitate to contact us. There are many levels of sponsorship available and we would be as happy as clams to have as much involvement in this area as possible - it can only enhance "Festival". For further information please email Sponsorship.

Tracey is as busy as a beaver at the moment collating all the information to enable online registrations. Her bedside reading during our recent stint in Sydney was a manual on a new computer program she has to know to be able to upload all the information - glad it's her and not me or it'd never happen:-)

Class registrations are due to open in mid-July with a Registration Progam being available at this time on the website; a hard copy will be available mid-August. If you know of a group that may be interested in receiving this information please forward any details to Sharon Due to printing and postage costs as well as saving the environment the preferred method of sharing this information if at all possible is via the website. Having said that, we fully understand that not everybody has this "tool" available to them.

Once again, if you have any questions, concerns or queries please don't hesitate to contact us.

Until next time......."quilt on"!!!

Sharon & Tracey

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

NEW CATEGORY FOR THE QUILT SHOW!

We are thrilled to advise that due to hard work and generous sponsors, AMQA Inc & Festival are pleased to announce the addition of a 7th category in the Quilt Show.

Art/Pictorial:
Minimum of 100 overall inches, maximum of 280 overall inches. Involving thread play and/or a mixture of mediums and embellishments.  All embellishments must be firmly attached and quilt must be able to be hung conventionally and with minimal care required.  All quilts entered in this category must be the original design of the quilt maker and not made under the direction of another person in a workshop/course situation.

So the final list is

Categories for AMQAS 2010:

Note: Overall inches are determined by totalling the measurements of ALL sides.

Custom Heirloom/Show -Large: Minimum of 281 overall inches, maximum of 480 overall inches. Custom Heirloom/Show quilts have been specifically designed as quilt show entries and/or not intended to be used as functional bed quilts. Fibers, fringe, crystals and embellishments of any kind are permitted.

Custom Heirloom/Show—Wall: Minimum of 100 overall inches, maximum of 280 overall inches. Custom Heirloom/Show quilts have been specifically designed as quilt show entries and/or not intended to be used as functional bed quilts. Fibers, fringe, crystals and embellishments of any kind are permitted.

Wholecloth : Minimum of 281 overall inches, maximum of 480 overall inches. The entry must be a single piece of fabric or pieced fabric that is all of the same colour, texture and content. The wholecloth piece should be designed to highlight the many quilting techniques of today’s machine quilters, including, meandering or background quilting, straight lines, feathers, continuous line and non-continuous line designs. The quilting must be the dominant feature of the Wholecloth and the quilting should encompass the entire quilt.

Functional Custom -Large: Minimum of 281 overall inches, maximum of 480 overall inches. This category is for those functional bed quilts that we do for ourselves or for our customers that are meant for daily use but have been machine quilted with high quality custom quilting techniques. No embellishments, metallic threads or thread painting of any kind are permitted in this category.

Functional Custom -Wall: Minimum of100 overall inches, maximum of 280 overall inches. This category is for those functional lap quilts that we do for ourselves or for our customers that are meant for daily use but have been machine quilted with high quality custom quilting techniques. No embellishments, metallic threads or thread painting of any kind are permitted in this category.

NEW!!

Art/Pictorial: Minimum of 100 overall inches, maximum of 280 overall inches. Involving thread play and/or a mixture of mediums and embellishments.  All embellishments must be firmly attached and quilt must be able to be hung conventionally and with minimal care required.  All quilts entered in this category must be the original design of the quilt maker and not made under the direction of another person in a workshop/course situation. 

Edge-To-Edge: Minimum of 281 overall inches, maximum of 480 overall inches. An all-over-the-quilt pattern which is continuous-line derived from a pantograph or freehand quilting. The quilting design must cover the quilt completely from one edge to the other.

Note about quilts that are machine quilted with a Computerized Quilting System (CQS): Any quilt that is machine quilted with a CQS may be entered into the categories except for the edge to edge category. Utilization of a CQS is not a guarantee of perfection since stitch quality, stitch length, design choice and proper design placement are important factors for ALL machine quilters.

You can now download the entry form & terms & conditions here!

Entries are due by 31st July 2010.

We encourage everyone to think about entering a quilt into this show. The prize pool is growing all the time and we are positive you will appreciate the quality of our Australian quilters in this display at Festival. This is an amazing opportunity to receive feedback from the judges, gain personal satisfaction of showing your work, gain valuable marketing exposure and feel proud of your work being presented to the general public, your peers and potential customers.

The quilt show is for any machine quilted quilt. Does not matter what size or type of machine you have used to complete it. We would like to present a variety of quilting designs, from functional everyday use quilts to heirloom custom and in between.

Both Sharon & I are hitting the road at 6am tomorrow morning!!! ughhh I hear you….vbg

We will be attending the Quilt & Craft Expo at Rosehill racecourse in Sydney over the weekend. We have been blessed to have a booth to promote Festival to all attendees. So if you are at the show, make sure to drop by & say hi! We will have Quilt Show entry forms to collect & a list of sponsors, vendors, teachers & their classes on display.  We look forward to chatting with everyone there.

Until next time….

Tracey & Sharon

owners AMQ Festival 2010