Saturday 30 August 2008

Toongi Quilt Show

I've been following other bloggers visits to quilt shows - Houston, the Festival of Quilts in England, even the Sydney Quilt Show... and have wished I could be there.
But, then again, those bloggers don't get to visit the Toongi Quilt Show, and I did!

Toongi Hall is 26km south of Dubbo in Western NSW. For any of you who watched the show Outback House on ABC TV, you may like to know that "Oxley Downs" is only a couple of kilometres away from Toongi. The hall is in the middle of paddocks, and has served as a meeting place for the surrounding farms for many years. Here are some shots of the surrounds -



And this is the hall...

A group of quilters from the area hold a quilt show every couple of years. The hall is packed with quilts, local shops and craftspeople set up stalls, and they serve absolutely delicious scones with jam and cream for morning and afternoon tea.
This is inside the hall...


And here's a closer look at some of the quilts. I love the chooks with boots! And if you need a translation of "chooks", they're chickens in the rest of the English speaking world. Chooks is a much better name for these, though...
The photo doesn't do justice to the beautiful applique on this one. It's covered in flowers and fairies.
And this is a very pretty cot quilt. The centre of each block has been embroidered.
So, I've had a lovely day with a couple of friends and can claim to have visited a quilt show that most of my blogging friends will never have the opportunity to see (grin).

1 comment:

Mai-Britt Axelsen said...

Thanks for sharing, Rhonda - I know that you would love to come to the big shows, and they are great; but as a matter of fact the small shows counts just as much and are the important ones to attend! The small ones must have publicity and visitors....... or they will die - so please report from any such advent and we shall all marvel at what can be achieved at this level. In the meantime look at my blog for more stuff at FOQ.

I used to live in London and loved the culture, now I live in a small island (pop. 60.000) and use http://margaret-cooter.blogspot.com/ a lot for London culture imput - it's a matter of adapting.