Whenever St Mark's Quilters come together for a workshop you can always count on plenty of laughter, tasty treats and beautiful quilts for RPA Hospital's Newborn Intensive Care Unit and the KU Marcia Burgess Autism Specific Early Learning and Care Centre at Liverpool.
Yesterday Margaret spent her time stitching down the binding on her latest hexie quilt. She's been carefully piecing it together by the fire throughout the winter months in Sydney, and now it's almost finished and ready for its long journey across the world to Holland where it will wrap her ninth great grand baby (due in just a couple of weeks) with her love.
Clever Susie's been flying high making this fun kindy quilt from a panel. Super fast, and so easy to quilt around those planes and clouds.
This sweet little Blanket of Love, however, would have required rather more planning and concentration. Susie used the Li'l Twister tool to achieve this beautiful result.
We love to see our quilters stretch themselves and try out a new technique or skill, so we were super excited when Susie attached her machine's quilting foot, donned her rubber quilting gloves and spent a couple of hours becoming more and more comfortable free motion quilting a practice piece. Woohoo!
I can't wait to see how she quilts this latest little Blanket of Love.
The "S Team" (Sophie and Susan) have been busy collaborating on this cheerful kindy quilt.
They added this quirky row of rabbits to enlarge the strippy flower garden quilt they started a couple of months ago.
And they added a checkered border to this cute panel. Love the blue sneakers too!
Perdita, one of our pastel loving quilters, added these Blankets of Love, one in pink and green with a kiss of lemon, and the other in crisp blue and white.
Then she wasted no time in planning and cutting her next one, in her signature colour of pink of course.
Gail also leans towards pastels, and here's her latest finish.
One of the things about getting together is that we can always get help with layouts and colour choices. Sometimes it's hard to make a decision alone, and it helps to stand back and get another opinion, something both Gail and Michelle found helpful yesterday as they were laying out their fabrics.
This one is Gail's...
...and this is Michelle's. These are going to become snowball blocks, and Michelle's chosen her colours to co-ordinate with that cute bird feature fabric.
Gillian was as quiet as the colours in her soft pink quilt as she sat patiently hand appliquéing all these scrappy hearts. She always approaches her quilting imaginatively so I can't wait to see how she quilts this one.
For this one Barb was inspired by a huge Hunter's Star quilt she saw recently on a friend's bed.
You'll have to wait till next time to see this quilt Barb spent her time binding yesterday. Love the cute Winnie the Pooh backing!
If I had to pick a signature colour for Di C it would be yellow, in all its variations from old gold through to lemon. When we were given some pieces of mellow country-themed fabrics a couple of months ago Di knew that yellow was exactly what was needed to make these fabrics shine.
A little person is going to just love looking at those sheep, pigs, horses and ducks. What a warm, golden glow this lovely quilt has!
Here's another of Di C's yellow quilts, a sunny Blanket of Love.
And keeping right on with the sunny theme, here's her latest quilt in progress, featuring yellow ducklings.
There's something special and warming about yellow, and these days I find I can rarely stop myself including yellow somewhere in the design.
Here's another stunner, this time from Di B. She's used the Quick Curve Ruler to cut these fabrics, and her colour combination is spot-on!
Martians on the front and back, and a rainbow binding make this kindy quilt a sure winner.
Di B also brought along two smaller masterpieces, this from Jaybird Quilts' Candy Dish pattern, using the rich orange colour way fabrics from Emma Jean Jansen's Terra Australis range...
...and this Emma Jean Jansen Flower Power pattern using fabrics from Emma Jean's The Linen Cupboard range. Just look at that quilting. Mmmmm... feathers!
After such an amazing effort it wasn't surprising that Di spent a relatively relaxed day binding her latest Blanket of Love.
The next, and final, three are my contributions. I finished this one a little while ago, but loved it so much that I've only now felt ready to add it to our St Mark's Quilters' collection. Do you ever feel like that about a quilt?
I used my Quick Curve Ruler to cut the pieces, and the Quick Curve Sidekick Ruler to guide my free motion quilting on my domestic machine.
I started this Economy Block quilt last year, and somehow it languished without a binding until recently. I like the bright colours and fussy cut framed squares and I hope they appeal to a little person.
These are the beginnings of my next Blanket of Love. More to come next month.
So, a dozen women spent the day cutting up fabric and sewing it back together again.
Are we nuts?
Not when I see photos like these, sent to us by the staff of "The Marcia", showing some of our darling little quilt recipients and their families.
The smiles on those faces make it all worthwhile.
Besides, the world's a safer place for everyone when we quilt! ;-)
