Mel in Melbourne

Melbourne, March 12-14, 2010.

Mel J., a very long-time Pattern Review member, organized the entire "Pattern Review Down Under Weekend" event on a completely volunteer basis. She is my heroine! As you can see here, she did the "heavy lifting" to make this all happen. (She's the one on the floor with her arms full.)

Dorothy, on the right in the photo above, organized an incredible day of fabric shopping on Friday.  Dorothy arranged a rented bus and driver to take us around all day. I selfishly took up an entire seat with just my fabric purchases, leaving one of us to sit on the floor. When you're over six feet tall, as Dorothy is, it was a challenge, but everyone was so gracious.

Anne, here on the bus, taught the skirt pattern drafting workshop on Saturday.

Below is one of our seventeen 17 !!! stops, all very well planned and organized.  This one store has more fabric than the entire town of Alice Springs! I was delighted to be able to break my nine month fast.

Another place we visited displayed the fabric on shelves as swatches. You could select from these swatches and the employees would pull the fabric from the warehouse. Many of our group headed straight to the warehouse!

A few of us studied the swatches first.

After these two stops, I was so busy with the fabric I forgot to take any more pictures!

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That night, some of us went out to dinner together at an Italian restaurant. From left, Chris (a local who also helped with the event logistics and who graciously brought her three sewing machines to demo and share), Marg from Sydney, Rosemary from New Zealand, Sharon from Sydney (also seen above helping carry Mel's gear), Janine from Tasmania, and Jenny from Sydney (who you saw rushing in to help Mel in the photo above.)

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Saturday morning Mel picked me and a few others up at our hotel and we headed to a Handbag straps and rings workshop at the studio of very creative Nicole Mallalieu. We were greeted by a cheerful selection of hats outside her door.

Her large, well-lit studio provided plenty of space for the ten of us who had signed up for this event.

Sharon, Marg and Jenny are getting settled in. A few of our group brought sewing machines and Nicole provided ones for the rest, so we could all get in some hands-on practice.

Samples lined the walls to inspire us.

Here Nicole, on the right, discusses techniques with Kate (left) and Claire (center).

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Saturday afternoon I participated in Anne's terrific skirt pattern drafting workshop and again got so engrossed I forgot to take pictures. Saturday night an even larger group of us went out to dinner. Again, sadly, no photos were taken by me.

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Sunday morning, another great workshop -- this one was about embellishments for t-shirts, by Maree Pidgon. I had preivouly seen her wearing this same blouse in the magazine Australian Stitches, where she is a regular contributor. I recognized the garment right away! (She's the one on the right, below, discussing creativity with Marg.)

Here are some of her creations, brought to inspire us:

Her daughter came to help, too.

They posted some great photos they took here: maree pigdon Website

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Here Mel and Sharon look on as Marg shows them what she brought to work on. We're in a large double conference room Mel had booked for sewing and chatting and workshops.

Here Irene is getting some fitting help; a lot of this sort of thing went on throughout the weekend:

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Then some of us headed to the food court at the local train station, virtually next door, to pick up lunch and take it back to our conference rooms.

Claire, Mel

Rosemary, Dorothy

Jenny

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Still to come... photos of the fabric I purchased!