AQC

The Australasian Quilt Convention opened today in the Exhibition Building in Carlton. I volunteered for white glove duty, which meant I could get into the show free, and also get up close and personal with the quilts.

This is me getting my hands on a quilt I never expected to see in real life. It was made by Cherry, a blogging friend in the US.  I watched this quilt being made on her blog. You can see her inspiration here, some early progress here, more here, and the finished quilt here. I was very excited when I found out that Cherry's Van Gogh entry was in the group of finalists that were touring to AQC. I was planning to get a photo with my hands all over the quilt, but that was thwarted when it was hung in the top row!

There were lots of amazing quilts on display, but by the time I had done my 2 hours duty, I was too overwhelmed to think sensibly about taking some photos. 

The only thing I was interesting in looking for among all the vendors was a thimble. I was looking for the leather stick-on ones which a couple of people recommended to me. But no-one seemed to have them for sale. However, I did find the one in this photo at one of the Japanese vendors:

The needle threaders were not from the show - I popped into Daiso on the way back to the station to see if they had any thimbles. No luck, but I've been having a lot of difficulty threading needles lately, so these were a good find.

My only other purchase for the day, apart from refreshments, was these:

I do love mochi! I've only found one shop in Ballarat that sells them, and the price there is more than double the city price, so I like to stock up when I'm in town.