Last night, we had a show and tell of purchases from the first day of the show. Of course, you can all guess what happened today. What we had missed yesterday we bought today. There are some wonderful traders here, with South African fabrics, threads and embroideries. These were some of our favourites including – Langalapua, fabrics4africa.

We wanted to support Tambani and bought many of their hand embroideries. Such an amazing worthwhile project, creating jobs for Venda women to help them support their families.

I love bumping into Rosa at the various shows all over the world. She is from Spain and the only trader who had made it over from Europe. Quilters here, avidly watched her apliquick techniques and many of our group just had to have the tools.

The Egyptian tentmakers display, was much admired and you can watch a video of them on my Facebook page.

Several of us attended the lecture on the Keiskamma art project. This is an indicative that helps unemployed rural women earn money by learning embroidery and other craft skills.

And there was time to relax in the sun. Note the shopping bags, I hope they can get all their purchases into their suitcases!

Tonight is our farewell dinner and we have invited Renee de Beyer to join us as she has done much to make this tour such a success. Thank you Renee, it is thanks to you that we have met so many South African quilters.

We have been warmly welcomed at this show in Port Elizabeth, having become celebrities as we travelled from Cape Town. From my previous blogs of this tour you have been able to read about the local quilting groups and their wonderful hospitality.

One of our group is learning from Jenny Bowker and several others have booked in for lunchtime lectures. Jenny once stayed with me in the UK and it was lovely to see her again.

What I love about attending quilt shows all over the world is the differences! This show is no exception. Despite having considerable fabric stashes at home we still found plenty that we needed or was it wanted? I purchased from Amafu and Pam Stallebras, hand dyes and painted fabrics.

I am able to post general photos of the wonderful quilts as individually they are not to be uploaded to the internet.

Finally, I must mention the beautiful rosettes given to each prize winning quilt. These were made by Angie Franke, as was the aloe flower display.

The fabrics were donated by Da Gama produced by Kowie. Many of us have purchased several of the shweshwe fabrics during this tour, including me. Today, I saw a quilt I would like to make with them.

Our days have been so full and interesting that I have had no time to write a blog. Today is Friday and last Wednesday was a long and fascinating day. We left Stellenbosch to drive to Swellendam to visit the Drostdy ( magistrate) museum. A local quilter, Dione gave a funny presentation of her quilts, some of which I videoed and uploaded to Facebook.

We spent sometime looking at the rooms which featured 18th and 19th Cape furniture. The local guild had draped quilts in many of the rooms especially for us.



A short walk away was the conservation room, full of old embroidered and quilted clothing as well as some quilts.

We then drove on to Outshoorn, crossing a dramatic mountain pass into the Klein Karoo which reminded me of Arizona. On the way we saw groups of zebra, a giraffe, many different types of antelope, the cape blue cranes, hundreds of ostrich and much more.
The Queens hotel where we were for the night is so named because our Royal family stayed here in 1947. Wilma from the local Outeniqua quilters guild (name of mountain behind the town of George) gave us a very warm welcome and we spent the early evening with her group as they did a Show and Tell. We were served delicious canapés, including ostrich carpaccio with a local sparkling pink wine.







Thank you Wilma and friends!

After four fabulous days in Cape Town, we drove to Stellenbosch via Pniel, which is a small town a little further into the mountains. Here, we were hosted by the Boland Kwilters. They had set up a lovely exhibition of their work and a table full of food, typical of the area. We met up with coloured (this is the correct term) and Africaans quilters who had started to meet in 2012. This was reflected in their sampler and colour wash quilts on display.

They spoke to us about how many of them were descended from slaves and others had an Indian ancestry.

One of their teacher, Els, was using my book Sew a Row Quilts, which she had bought in for me to sign. She proudly showed me one of her row quilts.

We were impressed with Els’s fabric book of techniques.

The Boland Kwilters meet in the church hall and alongside is the Pniel Congregational church which has Simon’s mountain in place of a church tower. We stood in awe looking at this magnificent mountain.

After lining our stomach with the delicious food we drove a few minutes down the road to the Boschendal Winery. A wine tasting had been arranged for us.

We all managed to get back onto the coach without incident! Tonight we are staying in the centre of Stellenbosch in the attractive Oude Werf Hotel. At 5pm we have two local quilters coming over to do a ‘Show and Tell’. Photos will be posted to Facebook.