Ok, you’ve rubbed it in – I’m stuck in Canberra with craft shops closing left right and centre. So where is the craft show debrief??? you’ve been back for at least 2 nights? why are you making us wait? where are the great photos of the clever peeps that I’m sure you took, the detail of the fab quilts, who did you hob nob with, how did the clothes shopping (not buying) efforts go? spill the beans Ms Caity.

WELL, since you asked, Miss Nic! I do apologise for the delay in reporting in – I totally wore myself out! (And then the new neighbours moved in with a Very Barky Dog who didn’t shut up all night – for the last two nights in a row. Grrr!)

So here is the somewhat delayed (and I hope not too disappointing) review:

MEH.

There were hardly any stalls – I mean, you know how normally craft fairs are so packed with women-with-backpacks (Guilty! this year:-))and strollers and strolling middle aged women with their Mums… well, you could have swung a cat-printed scarf through the aisles with ease.  Apparently a lot of the stallholders pulled out in the last couple of weeks leading up to the show. (You have to wonder how much of that is due to the heavy promotion being done by the rival mob – who have a show in just a month’s time.)

The hall decorations were cool – although if you saw any of the fab bloggers writing about the Melbourne version of the show, you’ve seen this already.  I did get the chance to see the awesome Selvedge dress (and chair!) however:

That's a LOT of selvedges!

How clever (and dedicated!) is Jodie of RicRac blog? AWESOME!
I’ve put that pic in at a large size so you can see what I mean (in the dark background) about just how empty the place was.

Also, some things that got fairly big billing on the show’s website were quite – how do I say this – UNDERWHELMING.  “The Teacosy Revolution” had FIVE teacosies.  I had hoped to see a LOT more than that! (Never mind, her blog about them is lovely!)  There were some bead stalls, some of the usual quilt stores, but nothing that really had me falling over with WOW, y’know?

NOW that’s the whinging over – let me tell you about the GOOD BITS!!

And oh, they were VERY good.

First – the company was grand – thanks, BFF!! We met the fantabulous (and so busy!) Nikkishell of BurdaStyle.com, Wardrobe Refashion, and one of the founders of Mixtape magazine.  (Can I be Nikkishell when I grow up?!And Oh my GOSH now she’s gonna be a Melbourne’s Tessuti Fabrics!!  AWESOME!!)  BurdaStyle.com had a fashion parade – which was GREAT (even with those poor teeny weeny malnourished models – seriously, I just wanted to take them aside and say “Have a crumpet and a cuppa before you CUT yourself on your own bones, dearie!).  Seeing clothes In Real Life is so much better than peering at a pattern on a screen…

"Judy" skirt - pattern from BurdaStyle.com

Paola wrap dress pattern from BurdaStyle.com

These were two of the patterns paraded – seriously gorgeous and made me determined to get sewing on some soon!

Another fashion parade featured garments from Wardrobe ReFashion – I was pleased to see the mob of shcool kids watching the show tooks HEAPS of pics of those!

We also met Justine (The other force behind Mixtape zine – it’s very cool, now I can see why people were excited every time the new issue comes out!) in blog alley – a row of indie/bloggers with their products which along with the fashion shows wsas really the highlight of the event for me.

We hadn’t seen  peppermint magazine before either – not that I’ve had a chance to read it yet!

I couldn’t resist a couple of patterns from the very clever Pauline of Funky Friends Factory – seriously, how cute is Kiki the Koala? These patterns were all designed to be baby safe, are made of snuggly polar fleece, and I had a great deal of trouble giving back the rhino toy, he was so cuddly…

Sue got some GREAT organic cotton jersey hand printed fabric from Thea and Sami, which I’m sure she’ll show you when it’s made up!

I was worried given the sparse offerings that my two absolute MUST STOP retailers wouldn’t be there – but they came through for me, Yay!!  I always need more scissors  – this time I needed to replace my thread snips, so we had to stop at  Scissorman.  I bought some lovely curved blade snips and a little brush-tipped bottle of oil – gotta have the right tools for the job!(Onya, Trevor!)

And my other MUST visit is of course Stephanie at Can Do Books and Perpetual Patterns.  I knew I wanted at least one pattern – and I got the Liberty Shirt from The Sewing Workshop.  I already have fabric in my stash – I just  need to trace the pattern out and get going…

Then into town across the bridge (slap upside the head to IDIOT Caity – MORE THAN ONE PAIR OF SHOES next time, OKAY?!) and over to Borders bookshop.  Another delightful Canberra pal (I miss you guys!) organised a book voucher for me at Borders, knowing that this was the one day I had access to a big bookshop.  It took me aaaaaaaaaages but I finally decided on two FABULOUS books:

and one just for fun – the EXTREMELY silly “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”

Braaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinsssss

Then Sue and I window shopped for while before going out for dinner – we had the NICEST meal at San Marco’s, overlooking the river. Then eventually to bed.. and more shopping (mostly of the window type!) on Saturday before heading home.  We did stop in at Gardam’s  (fabric heaven!)new location but no fabrics really grabbed us – then to Sckaffs fabrics at Indoorapilly, plus a good look round a lot of other shops there.

And by about 3 pm we were totally shopped out – and I came home and went  to bed for a coupla days!

There is more (and I’m sure I’ve missed out stuff I wanted to show you) but I am too tired…. ttyl!

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