52 Quilters - Week 27 - Fiona Forsyth - My Favourite Quilty Hang-outs

I tend to spend most of my time at home either in my sewing studio or sitting on my "soffice" - sofa/office - hand sewing:

My Sewing Studio

My Sewing Studio

My Sewing Studio

My Sewing Studio - view of the "Nut House" where my secret sewing squirrels congregate

My Sewing Studio - view of the "Nut House" where my secret sewing squirrels congregate

My Sewing Studio

My Sewing Studio

When I am not at home, these are a few of my favourite Quilty hang-outs:

Honeysuckle Stained Class & Patchwork - Bendigo 

My local quilt shop is Honeysuckle Stained Glass and Patchwork - which is owned by Nicky & Peter.  They have a large range of traditional and modern fabrics, buttons, ribbons, trims, DMC threads, Cottage Garden Threads, and other sewing notions.  Nicky is a modern quilter so she has a good selection of the latest fabric lines & is very knowledgeable.  If you lose me in the shop you will often find me in the Kaffe Fassett corner drooling over all the pretties!! Honeysuckle are a Quiltworx certified shop and they regularly run classes on the premises.

 

Honeysuckle Stained Glass and Patchwork

2 Havilah Rd, 

Long Gully (Bendigo) 

Victoria 3550 Australia

Phone: (03) 5441 3289

Opening Hours: 

Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm 

Saturday 9am – 12noon

http://www.honeysucklepatchwork.com.au/

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Spotlight Bendigo

I often refer to the local Spotlight store as my second home - as I live less than 5-minutes away, I often pop in to get my supplies. Spotlight is Australiasias largest supplier of Fabric, Craft, Party and Home Interiors, with Superstores in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia.

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Further afield - Ballarat is just down the road a bit from Bendigo :-)

Cotton Factory - Ballarat

My home away from home is Cotton Factory in Ballarat and I tend to go down there a few times a year.   Ballarat is "just down the road a bit" from Bendigo (it is 123kms south west of Bendigo - and it takes about 90-minutes to drive there). Cotton Factory is owned by Alison von Bibra (known affectionately as "#theAlison").  Cotton Factory is a small business in Ballarat with an aim to make craft available to everyone. They work with many independent Australian pattern and fabric designers to bring you some great goodies. Alison recently attended Quilt Market in Salt Lake City and she has access to all the products that are about to hit the market.  Here is a link to a previous article I wrote about Cotton Factory

Beyond these unassuming lime green doors lies lots of pretty treasures!

THE Alison - Alison von Bibra - Cotton Factory Ballarat

Cotton Factory

128 Clyde Street

(Cnr of Brougham Street)

Ballarat, Victoria, 3350, Australia

Opening Hours:

Thursday, Friday & Saturday

10am to 3pm

The online shop is ALWAYS open.

http://www.cottonfactory.bigcartel.com/

https://www.instagram.com/cotton_factory/

https://www.instagram.com/cotton_factory_destash/

Cotton Factory Community Block Swap

#cfcblockswap

A common theme when crafters talk about swaps, is how hard they are to organise, how varied the fabrics are (some chain store, some high quality fabric store, some Vintage) and how hard it is to manage when people don’t follow through. Cotton Factory is hosting a community block swap where you are guaranteed to receive your swap blocks.  The swap is open to Australian Quilters and Overseas Quilters and will work as follows:

• Purchase your BlockPack from Cotton Factory
• Make four blocks
• Return as many (or as few) as you decide
• You will receive the SAME number of swap blocks by return mail that you sent in.

All fabrics have been chosen by Cotton Factory. They include Carolyn Friedlander, Art Gallery, Jen Kingwell, Free Spirit and a range of well known, best quality, quilting cottons. For enquiring minds, the colour scheme is: mustard, teal, muted oranges and hints of citrus. Cotton Factory has partnered with Eye Candy Quilts to provide the pattern in your Block Swap Packs, at cost.  

Recapping key dates.

1. To start, just purchase a Block Pack before the end of July 2016.
2. Make your blocks
3. Post your swap blocks such that they arrive at Cotton Factory by 31^st August 2016
4. Get ready to receive your Swap blocks later that same week (or early the following week – dependent on Australia Post, the Universe and the usual postal planetary alignment).
5. In your own sweet time you make up your quilt. Keep using the hash tag #cfcblockswap, so we can all stay connected with your progress.

Sadly my Block Pack did not arrive in time for my 52 Quilters take over week however, Alison did give me permission to share some of her photos:

photo courtesy of @Cotton_Factory

photo courtesy of @katharine_von_bibra

UPDATE - this swap has since closed.

For more information about the #cfcblockswap, please go to:

https://cottonfactory.wordpress.com/2016/06/11/cotton-factory-community-block-swap/