Christine AbelaWeb site designer. Quilter.

Here at Gecko Gully, I am always on the lookout for new, innovative products. So when Linda Franz told me about her Inklingo products, I was very, very keen.

Linda has a wonderful range of books and patterns. But her main line is a series of downloadable templates. The idea is that you can download these shapes onto your computer, then you print them onto the wrong side of your fabrics using an inkjet printer.

So simple! you can use them over and over again, and it makes the preparation work of marking the sewing lines so much faster.

I don’t have these products in stock – you will follow a link to Linda’s site and buy them directly from her. http://www.geckogully.com/index.php?act=viewCat&catId=160

Enjoy!

I have put all the details on my web site, so I will keep this brief.

The Electric Quilt company has just an hour ago officially announced their latest release – EQ7!

Those of you familiar with the EQ6 and earlier products will know that whenever Electric Quilt announces a new product, it will be a good one!

And, as with EQ6, there is a special Upgrade version available for those with EQ6.

So come and see! http://www.geckogully.com

I had been toying with redesigning my own site (Gecko Gully, where I sell great stuff for quilters), for a while.

But it was when I had an email from a colour-blind visitor who said she had a lot of difficulty reading parts of it that I decided to act.

I hope you like the result!

To celebrate, I have included some special reduced prices on software and DVDs. You can find the full list of all the sale items here: http://www.geckogully.com/index.php?act=viewCat&catId=saleItems

These sale prices are only “while stocks last”, as I am trying to clear some space for new stuff (join the mailing list to be kept up-to-date when the new products arrive!).

Christine.

The effervescent Jasmine is celebrating her blogaversary by giving away a quilt on her blog.

It has those nice bright fabrics that I tend to buy but then like them too much to chop them up. I hope I win it!

Christine.

A quick note. At Gecko Gully, I have 20% off all products (even already reduced prices) for just a couple of days.

But there’s a catch – you will have to join the newsletter mailing list to get the discount coupon code.

Be quick! To join the mailing list, you might see a pop-up window on the site, or here is a direct link: http://www.geckogully.com/index.php?act=viewDoc&docId=5

I had a really nice day today. I don’t get to go to patchwork classes very often, partly because I am busy, but also because I have been making quilts for a long time, and I often feel that maybe I wouldn’t learn much.

I thought today would be like that. I went to Blue Willow Cottage in Werribee South (Victoria, Australia). A lovely shop, set among the cabbages and broccoli in a vegetable growing area.

The guest teacher today was the effervescent Bev Ross from Craft Cubby. Bev’s speciality is fusible applique. Now this is something I have done quite a lot of, and I am ashamed to admit that I went along not expecting to learn much, but wanting rather to meet some nice local ladies, and to observe how Bev sells her products (some of which I stock on my own web site.

Well, I did all that – I did meet some lovely local ladies (and two from further afield), and I also was able to pick up quite a few ideas on how I can better sell Bev’s products myself.

But I also learned SO MUCH about fusible applique. If you ever get the chance, I recommend you attend one of her classes. It went for six hours, which was quite long enough, but the women at Blue Willow were very generous with their hospitality and put on a wonderful morning and afternoon tea. Lunch was BYO, and I must admit to sneaking outside to eat my ham rolls in the quiet, just so I could absorb what I had learned in the morning, and to prepare myself for another onslaught of information from Bev in the afternoon. All good stuff!

In fact, even if you think you know all there is to know about an aspect of a craft, if you have an opportunity to do even a basic class with an expert in that area, it is usually well worthwhile.

Bev and her husband Bill have a particular love for gollywogs, and most of the other ladies in the class were working on one of her large GollyVille quilts. I don’t have a problem with gollywogs, but they are not a particular favourite of mine, so I chose to work on one of her other designs, called “Granny’s Kitchen“.

In the six hours I only managed to get the oven stuck down (the rest is traced and cut, and I hope to stick it all to the background this evening). There are fifty pieces in the oven alone, and 147 in the whole quilt! I will not be doing it with the wooden frame and the “stuff” around it – mine will be a simple wall hanging to go in my kitchen.

This shows what I managed to get done (still stuck to my applique sheet!).

Maybe one day I will get it finished, and can post a picture of it on my kitchen wall…

I was a busy person late last week. Someone asked whether a chat room could be added to the new forum at http://www.quiltaustralia.com/forum . So, always excited by a challenge, I added one!

I did quite a bit of online publicity about the new forum on Friday, and added that there would be a group chat at 8pm that night.

But, as sometimes happens, I got an email at 7:30 to say the chat wasn’t working. Aaarrrggghhh!!

So I typed and looked and thought and investigated, and had it fixed by 8:30. Phew!

Anyway, the chat (and the forum) are now up and running! If you are a quilter in Australia, or are interested in the Australian quilting scene, come and see! http://www.quiltaustralia.com/forum . There is a place for advertising (even for non-Australians).

Christine.

Quilt Australia Forum

I have created a new forum called Quilt Australia Forum.