Janice

Good on you for moving this across!

Brian, G'day to you too! I'm certainly one Aussie happy to help, and I know there are a couple of others who 'lurk' here who may pop out of the woodwork.
I'm in the office now so not able to access all my info but I'll add another response later with any details I can source.

FNQ (Far North Queensland) is a beautiful place in the world and I'm sure you'll have a lovely trip anyhow. I'll be spending a week there at Xmas/new Year too.

kind regards

Anne

Brian,

OK. I have the map out & have cross referenced the Australian Online Quilters site for this info. Later in the day I'll try some magazines to check I can't find any more.
You may already know a couple of these things and excuse me if I'm telling you stuff you already know but just in case.....
Quilting is very popular in Australia & there ar some outstanding quilters as verified by some of the International awards won, but given our total population is in the order of 23Million across a country roughly the same size as the USA we just don't have anywhere near the number of specialty stores that you would be familiar with seeing.
Secondly, North Queensland, as beautiful as it is, is not one of the highly populated areas so that shopping centres etc are going to resemble small towns to you rathre than cities. They are lovely places but not big.
Thirdly, whilst there are great creative pattern artists here producing some beautiful Australian inspired work, there are not a huge range of Australian fabrics. Certainly there are some and especially some fetching prints of designs by Aboriginal artisans, but there are not masses of them. So you are going to see fabrics you see at home.
Having said all that I'm sure it is worth visiting and so this is what I have found so far....
CAIRNS

Button Tree Quilts - Civis Shopping Centre, 117 Sheridan St Cairns (www.buttontreequilts.net.au) said to be very friendly

Cairns fabrics - 70 Grafton St. 'opens about 8.00 am, it is best to get there early as his fabrics were $1 this week" (not sure when this quote was loaded to the site!

Bernina & Bargain Box - Aumuller St. Catch a bus from the city ask for a bus going to Earlville shopping centre. Get off the bus at the showgrounds shopping centre, there is a small craft shop there, then cross the road at the traffic lights. the next street is Aumeller St, ther you will find Bernina which has some fabric & Bargain box is next door, Ask the ladies at Bernina to direct you to the fabric shops near Earlville Shopping Town. You can tell them the info came from a 'SCQuilter' (that is the name for our online group Southern Cross Quilters and that Wendy Law sent you!)
the shops in Earlville are;
Easy Buy Fabrics - 254 Mulgrave Road
Richardsons Fabrics - 194b Mulgrave Road
Kay's fashion Fabrics - Westcourt Plaza Shopping Centre, on the LHS going out Mulgrave Rd
Fabric Shop - The MArinos Arcade
Sew Wise - 490 Mulgrave Road

ATHERTON

I can find reference only to somewhere called Angies - no address found (YET!)

Hope these are useful. Let me know if you are going to be anywhere else & I'll look more extensively. I'll post agian if I find any more. Otherwise enjoy your travels, travel well & safely, & I hope you love Australia!

Kind regards

Anne

Hi Janice and Anne, Wow,thanks for the trouble you've gone to. You two are ok. My wife is yet to find out this info, but tomorrow I'll get her onto this site. She's bitten by the quilting bug for sure, so armed with the places Anne has pointed out, she'll be havin fun!
Cheers and thanks again, Brian.

Brian,
My pleasure, as I said I'm happy to research mre, just let me know of anywhere else you might be heading.

KR
Anne

Hello Anne! I'm so glad to see you here. I hope things are better for you. We've missed you!

I was hoping you would see this post, as I was sure you would give Brian and his DW some pointers!

Brian we look foward to meeting your wife here on the forum. You will find this to be a very friendly place. We have a lot of talented people of all levels, who are more than happy to answer questions, and help anyway they can!

Janice