Quilt & Craft Expo 2010

Well the wholesale Quilt & Craft Expo is over for another year. It is always held in June,  before the NSW Quilt Show & retail craft fair. If I had realised that the two events were only days apart this year I would have planned a little better and stayed on in Sydney to see the Quilt Show.  As it was, I ended up driving the round trip, nearly 2, ooo kilometres,  just for the 2 day wholesale event.

There we are, all packed ready to head off to the Quilt & Craft Expo

I enjoy the wholesale events as much as the retail events, as it gives me a great opportunity to meet, in person, the people that I have only met previously by telephone or email. 

Setting up the Aurifil stand at the 2010 Quilt & Craft Expo

The Aurifil Stand, ready for visitors. I just loved the little gerbera / daisy quilts that we used to display the different thread weights.

Another view of the Aurifil stand.

The Trade Fair  is a wonderful opportunity to present the full range of Aurifil products. This year we presented our sampler packaging service for shops, so look out for these in your local patchwork shop in the next few months.

An Aurifil Sampler in Cotton Mako' Ne 28 for quilting. Don't the colours just blend beautifully with the fabric pack? Look for combinations such as this in your local patchwork store.

We are offering this service so that it will be possible for shops to match Aurifil thread sampler packs to their “block of the Month” programs, workshops, fabric packs and patterns.

Looking down the aisle early in the morning before the Expo opened

The other fun part of going to a wholesale trade fair is to get a preview of what is new.

More displays at the Quilt & Craft Expo

This year I noticed that the fabric colours are getting lighter and brighter. I also noticed that a lot more Australian pattern designers were showing their work, so there were some very attractive patterns on display.

The view down another aisle at the Quilt & Craft Expo before the show opened

Usually I drive the Hume Highway, the most direct route, between  Melbourne & Sydney. However this time we drove home via Canberra, and down the Monaro Highway to the south coast, and then on to Melbourne via the Gippsland. It was not much further than the direct route and was much more relaxing.

Cape Conran National Park, one of the spots where we stopped for a break in our driving.

When ever we are driving long distances, we always make a point of stopping for coffee, or just to stretch and change drivers, every couple of hours. The stop at Cape Conran National Park was a highlight of the drive. 

This Banksia bush was next to the car park when we stopped at Cape Conran