Yo-Yo Vest & Woven Vest

 At the recent Craft & Quilt Fair held in Canberra earlier this month, two garments caught my eye in the wonderful Exhibition's Display area organized by the energetic Canberra Quilters - always a delight to visit.
A stunning Yo-Yo Vest, made by Dell Armistead, entered in the Creative Clothing Challenge section, attracted me because of the yo-yos.  Isn't it classy?  Congratulations Dell.  The back had a row of yo-yos continue around the hemline and a few on the top yoke, from memory.

 


Louise Fredericks won First Place in the "Once Old, Now New" section with her jacket featuring woven panels on the front and back.  I've taught a lot of weaving techniques, hence my interest.
Well done Louise.

Next Craft & Quilt Fair we attend will be in Hamilton, New Zealand.  It must be 7 years since we've attended that show, so I hope to catch up with many Kiwi Customers!  Tell your friends that there are many new features, guest artists, quilt displays and so many other 'never before seen in NZ' displays.  We are holding educational demonstrations every 30 minutes all day every day on our stand as part of the Nifty Notions feature from Into Craft.  www.intocraft.com.au  We also have a special guest from USA on our stand for the first time in NZ.  Please welcome Sandra Chandler, inventor of the famous Curve Master Presser Foot.  Sandy will be demonstrating how to sew curves without pinning or quartering.
Watch for the release of September's e-newsletter first week in that month - my column will explore quilt-as-you-go techniques.

Now for the farm news: Remember I told you of the emu exchange we have been doing with the Sydney Wildlife at Darling Harbour in Sydney?  They delivered a few more adult emus to us a few weeks ago and they'll be collecting some of our new baby chicks shortly, as soon as they are a little older.  I believe they will be holding a promotion during the next month or so advertising their arrival.  If you happen to visit the Darling Harbour complex and see them, know they are ones we bred.

This time they hired a truck to bring three down to us - I heard they'd become a little too difficult to handle within their area.  The exchange arrangement we have with them suits them to a tee!  They've settled in very well and mixed with those inquisitive onlookers you see above.

Another interesting news item for you.  Simon Clarke from Charles Sturt University in Wagga, contacted us requesting some emu egg broken shells to assist him with his research determining the age and history of emus.  Yesterday, Simon visited us to collect the egg shells and I found his research so interesting that I thought you may like to know about it too.  He kindly gave me a paragraph to explain what his research was about.

Simon wrote:

I’m part of a research group that has been collecting fragments of emu and Genyornis eggshells from sites across Australia. Genyornis is an extinct flightless bird related to the magpie goose but the size of a very large emu that died out about 55,000 years ago. We are interested in learning as much as we can about the prehistory of both birds from any data source we can. One thing we don’t know is whether Genyornis had coloured eggshells. What we would like to do is study the pigments in emu eggshells to assess how likely it is that they would survive for tens of thousands of years. If we can find pigments (or their degraded residues) in fossil emu eggshells then there is an improved chance we can find pigments in Genyornis eggshells. So the egg fragments I’m collecting from John will be used in experiments to see how likely the pigment in emu eggshell fragments (called biliverdin) will survive in experiments designed to simulate long-term exposure to the elements. Egg pigments are important for a whole variety of reasons including egg identification, camouflage and signalling female fitness.

Little emu chicks are thriving this year; we should have 200 by the end of the month.  I'll take some more photos and share with you in the coming month.