Gum Valley Patchwork

Frolic 2021

After a Covid hiccup in the middle of our scheduled Friendship Frolic, we finally were able to finish off our event on Sunday. It was a great 3 days, with lots Frolickers participating. Friday was busy, Saturday was crazy hectic, with Sunday a little quieter, which meant that we could catch up processing all of our Online Frolickers orders.

Everyone enjoyed having the chance to browse the shop with all of the new fabrics and kits.....

As per previous years, I set up a special display in the classroom for our Frolickers to look at. This year I asked Michelle Gristede if I could borrow some of her many Crazy Sister Quilts to put on display. Ten of Michelle's quilts, along with 3 of my own helped to transform the classroom into a fabulous display, which I hope everyone enjoyed. Thank you Michelle!

All of those Frolickers who completed their passports received their very special 2021 Frolickers Gift, which this year was our beautiful pen.

On Sunday night Lenora and I drew the winners of our major prize draw. First prize of the LED Floor Lamp and the beautiful Scissor set which was won by Lee Hibberd of Cooriemungle. Second prize was the $150 machine quilting voucher by Barb Devine, Devine Quilting which was won by Annette Weisner-Ellix of Warrnambool.

We also had our own in store competitions, with mine being Guess the number of pins in the jar. Congratulations to Jodie Drayton who guessed the correct number of 322! Jodie wins a $20 gift voucher from the shop, which I am sure she will put to good use.

Our other 'on the road' competition this year was our Friendship Frolic Jeopardy (with a difference) competition. I really enjoyed reading the invented questions to our listed answers. Here are a few of my favourite answers from the forms dropped off at my shop.....

For the answer of Fabric....... What can't you live without?  and the very Covid related    What qualifies as essential shopping?........ain't that the truth!

For the answer of Needle........ What is easily lost, hard to find except with bare feet?     and     What are people looking for when they romp in the hay? .......lol!

For the answer of Fat Quarter.........What happens to a fat eighth when it falls off it's diet?

But my all time favourite has to be.....

For the answer of Timboon.......Who is the lovechild if one of the Goodies and a cricketer? .........Bahahahaha!

So congratulations to Diana Forster from Colac, you have won a $20 gift voucher from the shop for your whitty answers....or should I say questions!

With the Friendship Frolic now over for another year, Lenora and I will start planning for our 2022 event. We are planning some exciting things, and will keep you all updated with the details. I consider myself so very lucky to have such a great friend in Lenora, and to be able to put on this event together with her for all of our customers is just wonderful!

Finally we would like to thank the following:

All of our customers for your continued support. We love what we do but without all of you, it wouldn't be possible.

Barb Devine for the machine quilting voucher as part of our major prize giveaway. I'm sure Annette will love it!

Melbourne Fabrics for donating the beautiful scissors as part of our major prize. I'm sure that Lee will put them to good use, along with her lamp.

and Michelle Gristede for loaning me her wonderful quilts for my special classroom display. I really appreciated it.

My attention now turns to my Christmas in July event, which is in just under 3 weeks time. This event is now fully booked, but I am taking names for a waiting list. If you have booked in, I will be contacting you in the next few days to confirm your place and arrange payment.

Linda   :)

 

 

Friendship Frolic.....Part B

It's a cold wet and windy day here at Gum Valley Patchwork, so I have decided to spend my time in front of the computer catching up on paperwork, my newsletter and some blogging. I have the heater on, a flannel quilt over my knee and a hot chocolate.....with marshmallows of course!....in my favourite mug.

If you have been following along you would've realised that we had to defer the second part of our Friendship Frolic due to the snap lockdown a fortnight ago. Both Lenora and I decided to continue with a Part B of the Frolic on Friday 11th, Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th June. Yes it's the long weekend, but with travel a 'little' restricted at the moment, we are hoping that it won't affect too many of you.

So here are the details once again:

But wait there's more!

We have also decided to extend the Frolic to online again this year!

The Online Friendship Frolic will kick off at 9am Friday 11th June, and will continue through until 4pm Sunday 13th June. While we will do our best to monitor our online stock levels during the Frolic, but we cannot guarantee that the item you order online will be available, especially if we are busy in the shops. We would also like to ask that you do not keep items in your shopping cart for extended periods of time prior to checking out (ie hours/days). Sometimes this allows you to purchase something that may have been ordered by someone else in the meantime. Refreshing your order may help to rectify this issue. If your item/s are out of stock, we will contact you to ask if you would like something else to qualify for the free gift.  All online orders will be posted out on Tuesday 15th June (as Monday is a public holiday here in Victoria). 

To receive your special 2021 Frolickers gift, and to enter the draw for our major prizes, you must spend a minimum of $30 (excluding Block of the Months, Clubs, Classes and Postage) at both shops. Add the free gift prior to check out (at one shop only), and it will be included with your order. At Gum Valley Patchwork my Friendship Frolic Gift will be located in the Gifts Category on the left hand side of my website. Just look for this logo......

So here's hoping for a great Part B to our Friendship Frolic. Both Lenora and I have lots of new fabrics that have arrived, so make sure that you check them out!

Happy frolicking everyone! 

Linda   :)

Living in lockdown

Last Thursday afternoon, I shut up the shop while Victoria went into a 7 day lockdown. Apart from upsetting our Friendship Frolic and delaying the finishing of the event, it actually hasn't been too bad. And to be totally honest with you all, I have really enjoyed the last 6 days.

Friday I spent the day catching up on paperwork and bill paying......probably not everyone's idea of a fun time, but having one full day to pull everything together felt kinda good.

Saturday, with Russell home and the shop closed, we decided to get the team working and make our apple pies. Russell peels and chops up the apples, and I make the pastry, roll it out, fill the pies and bake them. At the end of the 5 hours we had 16 apple pies and 3 apple and mulberry pies. They are all bagged, labelled and in the freezer. 

(sorry about the crappy photo quality.....Russell took it on his phone......an Oppo.....enough said!)

Although the nights have been cold (and sometimes frosty), the days have been beautiful. I decided on Sunday to get a head start on my 'Month of Gardening' that I have planned for June. I do have a lot of roses to prune, weeds to be pulled, as well as deadheading and pruning to be done. The first garden bed was my new one that I established last year, followed up by 'Mum's Garden'. I did a live video from the garden the other day, explaining how it had been left relatively unkempt over the last 12 months as I had seen the back end of a snake disappear under the overgrown penstemons last Spring. It took two full days, and although you might not notice a difference, believe me there is. All of the Agapanthus have been deadheaded, plants and roses pruned back, leaves raked and weeds pulled out.

It was then time to prune a few more roses. These missed their hard prune back last year, so copped it this time around. I've never killed a rose so pretty sure that these will survive!

With this bed done.....yes it's small but sometimes it's good to have a quick finish!.....I moved to another area of the garden. More Agapanthus deadheaded.....

and continuing around the corner.....the before photo...

and afterwards......

This will give the Hellebores a chance to flower, with most of them starting to send up their flower spikes.

I dug up some self sown Foxgloves, Violas and Feverfew from other parts of my garden, and transplanted them in amongst the roses. Hopefully this will provide a little extra colour to the garden come Spring.

With the arrival of these four boxes of fabric this afternoon, my day tomorrow will be spent inside......unpacking, cutting and rearranging the shop to fit it all in.

So while I have enjoyed my lockdown, my thoughts are with family and friends in Melbourne who are not as fortunate as us in country Victoria. Take care everyone and I hope that it is only another week for you all.

With restrictions easing in regional Victoria, the shop will reopen on Friday 4th June at 11am. It is now mandatory for you to check in when visiting the shop, either by scanning my QR code (which is a very simple process) or by signing in using the register. For the next week (at least) face masks will be required in the shop, so please make sure that you have one with you when visiting. 

Linda  :)