Sydney Quilt Show 2011 award winners

Sydney Quilt Show prize and award winners were announced today, the first day of the 2011 event.  The winners web pages are already up for viewing.  Make sure you click on the Best of Show photo for a closer-up view of the very finely detailed applique.

Why quilting improves your health in ways even exercise can't manage

We all knew this, didn't we?  Still, the scientific evidence might be useful .... the (UK) Daily Mail reports on a Glasgow University study that found that quilting is better than exercise! 

The article concludes that "the craft industry contributes around £3 billion a year to the UK economy", and Anne from Ware commented "3 Billion spent on crafts in the UK? Don't tell my husband - he would be convinced most of it was me!"

Click here to read the article

Thanks to Brenda Smith for the link (via Facebook)

Monday group show and tell

Two quilts in nice contrast ...

One patch, many fabrics (a beautifully scrappy community quilt) ...

.... one fabric, many blocks (Lorraine K's fabric must have been pretty spectacular to produce this rich collection).

Beth Miller's new web-based business

Many of us are familiar with Canberra quilter Beth Miller's award winning work.  She retired from teaching last year, and has set up an online business with her daughter, Quilts by Pattern, selling her quilt patterns.

You can still see galleries of Beth's work at www.bethmillerquilts.com

55 best quilt blogs ...

Quilter's Home magazine (a US publication) has recently published a list of its top 55 blogs about (mostly) quilting.  The article, with all 55 links, is available online here. 

A good source of reading for these wintery indoors days ... or a potential occupier of much time ...?

The link is also posted over in the right hand column under 'Quilting related links' in case you want to come back to it.