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