Turns out the friend we were going to catch up with, a friend from home visiting her daughter in Brisbane, had had the same discovery on her flight down a couple of days earlier. The things you discover in in-flight magazines! So a quick change of plans and we met up at the fair instead. :)
Mum and I are now back in our motel room with very tired feet, much heavier bags and considerably lighter wallets.
I was very impressed with the range of stalls and the types of crafts catered for. I went to a couple of different craft fairs while I was living in England, which were considerably larger (but we are comparing Brisbane and London here!), but seemed to have a lot of the same stuff repeated at every third stall. Where as the Brisbane one had a good variety of quilting supplies and fabrics, appliqué, beading, cross stitch, card making, scrapbooking, teddy bear workshops, dress making, the list goes on. The other thing I really liked was that there were a lot of supplies and equipment shops- OttLites, hoops, needles etc. Not as much cross stitch fabric as I would have liked (hardly any) but given that it was in Brisbane and covering so many crafts- I guess I can't have everything!
Mum and I were rather restrained, and didn't buy as much as we could have. She has a rule that she's not allowed to buy any quilting fabric unless it's for a specific project. I have a rule that I'm not allowed to buy any more patterns - I have so many in my "want to stitch" pile and now I'm designing my own the pile is growing ever larger! At any rate between us we managed to stick to our rules (almost- I bought one pattern) and spent a lot of time admiring instead.
Not that Mum could spend too much money. We landed in Brisbane only to discover she'd left her wallet behind... at home... in another bag! So I'm paying for the weekend and she's paying me back at a later date!
Despite all this, I did manage to make a few purchases:
- A folding task OttLite lamp for my desk for those fiddly finishing tasks and sewing when I'm not near my large floor lamp.
- A mini LED light for stitching on the go (plane, backseat in the car)
- Sew Many Memories by Sue Hill Designs- my one pattern purchase (many others were patted and admired). This will eventually (when stitched) be for Mum. She loves the old Singer sewing machines, and pointed out and admired (loudly) the design while we were walking around so it won't be a surprise!
- QSnap frames in 11" and 6". I love these frames: they are so easy to hold, stretch the fabric nicely, don't leave as many marks as hoops, and don't tend to squish your stitches as much. Mum bought me an 11" frame years ago (8 or 10) and I've used it so much the clips have eventually worn out (currently held together with duct tape!). The 6" one will be great for my smaller projects. 
- I also bought some beads for cards and purple paper clips!
Mum managed to buy an A1 size quilting mat that we then had to lug around for the afternoon! Fortunately we ran into another ex-home-town friend who had her car and could drop us off at the motel with all our bags. Negotiating the buses with the mat would have been interesting!
All in all a very fun, last-minute, stitchy day.
Happy Stitching!!
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