Hi everyone, welcome to the first Quilters Quarters Newsletter for 2008. We’re into the middle of January already. I do hope this newsletter finds you all well and for those in cooler climes, keeping warm!

Well, my husband and I did set out on our intrepid tour of Australia only to be thwarted almost before we got started. We drove from Brisbane to Sydney (1000kms over two days), ready to put the car on the train and settle in for 3 days and nights of rested travel across the breadth of Oz, only to find that the train had been stranded in western NSW due to incredible flash floods. The country so needed the rain, so we couldn’t be too disappointed.

The person in charge told us that the only way we could join the train was to drive another 2000 kms to Adelaide in time to catch the train. Trouble was we needed to do that 2000kms in 18 hours. I’ve never loved my husband so much as I did when he turned to me and said “darling, let’s just go home”. So we had a coffee, a bathroom stop and turned around and spent the following two days getting home. We ended up having a very quiet Christmas at the beach, for me, catching up on some quilting and for my darling, catching up on some reading. Oh well, it’s not the end of the world, we’ll get another chance some day.

I do hope your holidays were a little less stressful, and that you’re now rested and ready for creating wonderous quilting projects in 2008.

While I was absent, I had arranged to have my articles posted on the website each Sunday. I do hope you were able to read them. I posted an array of topics including a very funny piece on the “messy proportions” of a quilters sewing area; an article musing on what happens to our quilts after we’ve given them away; an article about making your own background fabrics and my last article which was posted last Sunday - a book review on a crazy technique that looks and finishes in a wonderfully crazy way.

Here’s the link to read that review: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art436.asp . The other articles are still available on the quilting website page for you to check out.

Prior to Christmas I posted several newsletters to you with instructions for making quilting gifts for your friends. I’d love some feed back – did anyone make them? Were they useful? I’d also like to hear from you if you have ideas for articles for the Quilting@bellaonline.com website in 2008. What would you like to read about? What takes your fancy in the quilting world? Just contact me via the email address on the right side of the website screen.

I’ve also began to “clean up” some of the links that are on the quilting site. Over time some of these sites disappear and I’ve endeavoured to replace the dud’s with new links. So visit these links to see what’s new. I haven’t finished yet, but am working on it. If you come across a dud link, email me with the link please and I’ll replace it with something relevant and new.

So, cheerio for now, and remember have fun quilting.

Judie Bellingham
Editor Quilting@bellaonline.com