One year ends and another begins

Here we are in February, starting another year of stitching with St Mark's Quilters, when it seems no time since we were celebrating Christmas with our break-up lunch in the garden at St Mark's!

As usual there was plenty of colour and creativity with these finished cot sized quilts added to our collection for the KU Marcia Burgess Autism Specific Early Learning Centre.

By Sophie and Susan

By Sophie and Susan

By Di J

By Barb

I'm pleased to say we once again have enough quilts to give every child who starts at The Marcia this year a quilt of their very own.

Over the years some of our quilters have moved out of Sydney, but one of the aspects of our group that warms my heart is how our "absentee quilters" continue to keep in touch with us, and even make quilts for our cause. One such quilter is Cath, who recently gave us these pretty Blankets of Love. 

 Liz had made this lovely cross-hatched creation.

And Gail finished another sweet Blanket of Love in her signature dusty pink, muted style.

Sue M was busy making a set of bright placemats for a family Christmas gift.

And Di B put her best foot forward to show off her latest sneakers - in rainbow colours!

Our quilters ask for nothing in return for their work, they make quilts simply to put their faith into action. But Di B and I like to give each one a small gift at Christmas to show how much we appreciate them, and this year we made magnetic pin bowls.

It's not difficult to find a tutorial on the internet, if you want to make one for yourself, and they are so useful because the pins cling to the bowl, even if the whole lot slides off the table! Oops!

 Our quilting dogs, Chester and Elsa, made sure they were rewarded with treats too. They always do!

 In January we were delighted to accept a $300 donation from Rotary Inner West towards our batting and fabric, in continued memory of our late friend Peter Crooks.

It was also time for us to deliver 54 gorgeous little Blankets of Love to Danielle Achikiam, Volunteer Co-Ordinator at RPA Hospital's Newborn Intensive Care Unit, but not before Di B snapped these beautiful shots on a sunny summer's day to show them off in a particularly Australian way.

Don't our Blankets of Love look glorious hanging from an iconic Hills Hoist, flapping in the breeze beside Sydney Harbour!

Danielle was delighted with them, and that makes us happy too! 

Threads of friendship

Of all the amazing experiences I've enjoyed during my first week in The Villages, meeting a whole bunch of Florida quilters at two separate events has to be the highlight.

I was invited to give a presentation to the Central Florida Modern Quilt Guild on Monday evening, and the ladies couldn't have been lovelier to me. At the end of my "Meanderings of a (Moderately) Modern Quilter" their President, Karen, thanked me with this cute Pixie Basket of threads in really useful shades. 

Unfortunately the app I'm using to blog on the move on my DiPhone doesn't allow me to embed links, but if you'd like to make one of these for yourself you'll find the free tutorial here -http://fabricmutt.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-pixie-basket-tutorial.html?m=1 

I didn't take many photos on the night, but you can see how talented they are from their special Show and Tell of modern mini quilts.

I'd seen Karen's Metro Area quilt top (from Elizabeth Hartman's book, Patchwork City) on Linda's blog last year, so it was a treat to see it all quilted and finished.

 

You can read a full report of the meeting (with more photos) here - http://centralfloridamqg.blogspot.com/2017/02/feb-meeting-pre-quiltcon.html?m=1

The following day I gave the same PowerPoint presentation and virtual trunk show at Big Cypress Quilters.

Great fun followed, as I showed how to make my favourite cathedral windows style pin cushion, while Linda acted as my 'stunt quilter' doing the machining on her Bernina in between my demonstrating the steps.

I loved Mary Lou's enthusiasm!

 

There was Show and Tell here too, and I couldn't help but be amazed at these stunning Quilts of Valor, made for veteran servicemen.

 

You may like to read Linda's latest blog post for her perspective on the same events.

I'm so blessed to have met quilters around the world, and to have made firm friendships with some, initially through our common interest in quilting, but often finding we have much more in common, as Linda and I do. 

It's been a huge step for me to travel across the world on my own, and I've been touched by the hours she's spent, leading up to my arrival, making sure my days are jam-packed with incredibly exciting adventures, sights and experiences.

You can imagine how welcome I felt, then, to be greeted with a little group of gifts on my arrival - a Dunkin' Donuts Florida mug, a portable lamp to help my stitching, some quilt patterned pencils, and this beautiful Essential Wristlet (pattern by Dog Under My Desk) and Fabio Zipper Key Fob (by Lazy Girl Designs), the last two, of course, made by Linda herself.

That PINK and YELLOW fabric will always remind me of my holiday and the Florida sunshine we've been enjoying!  ☀️

It's another beautiful day...

 

... in The Villages, Central Florida, where I'm enjoying the generous hospitality of my friend, Linda Hungerford (http://flourishingpalms.blogspot.com) and her husband, Dan. 

 

This truly is a picture-perfect part of the world, where the artifice of the built environment, combined with the genuine warmth of The Villages residents, has had me pinching myself with excitement since I arrived here on Friday night after a 30 hour journey. 

 

We were out early on Saturday morning shopping for fruit and veggies at the markets in the Wild West themed village square of Brownwood, and saying 'Howdy' to the locals. 

  

 

Stepping into the Sales office for this part of The Villages is like stepping right into a Western movie, with authentic decor including armchairs upholstered in alligator skin, distressed leather couches, steer heads on the wall and Tiffany glass ceilings.

 

 

 

The entrance to Brownwood is guarded by magnificent bronze cattle.

  

 

And look who I found! A bronze pup looking so much like Chester that I had to give him a hug.

 

Quilts in the Church

What better season can there be than Christmas, when we celebrate Gods great love for us, to festoon our church with quilts, gifts of love made by St Mark's Quilters.

These larger, crib sized quilts, will soon be off to the KU Marcia Burgess Autism Specific Early Learning and Care Centre at Liverpool where each little boy or girl will be given one of our quilts when they start there this year.

I love how our quilts look with such a beautiful backdrop!

Then there are the Blankets of Love, around 60cm square, each destined to one day wrap around a tiny baby in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital's Newborn Intensive Care Unit.

Some of these bubs will be struggling to live. But some will not have survived their birth, and the quilt will either go with them when their parents say goodbye, or become a keepsake, a lasting memory of their precious little baby.

Either way, these grieving parents will know that a quilter at St Mark's cared enough to stitch love into a quilt especially to comfort them.

We hung up to nine quilts on each sandstone column, suspended by their corners, and the overall effect was amazing. 

With fresh flowers up in the sanctuary, red bows on the pew ends, and a glittering Christmas tree beside the font, the church looked incredibly beautiful, all dressed for Christmas.

Here's how it looked later that evening, as the choir processed in to our Carols Service by candlelight singing "Once in Royal David's City".

But it was when the lights were turned on that our quilts really shone.

Our quilters choose their own colour combinations from the stash of appropriate fabrics we've collected, even sometimes adding fabrics from their own stashes to achieve the end result. What you don't see, though, is the metres and metres of batting that goes inside  our quilts, something that would be very expensive indeed if our quilters had buy their own.

We like to think of this cuddly inner layer as the heart of our quilts, making them soft and comforting.

Ever since we began, the members of Rotary Inner West have given us a generous donation towards our batting each year, for which we're incredibly grateful. 

While the quilts were hanging in the church Di B and I invited President Fay Thurlow, along with Sandra Bloxham, member of the Board of Directors, for a private tour to see the quilts hanging in St Mark's, followed by morning tea in the church garden. 

We were delighted that they presented us with a cheque, in memory of a member of our church family, Peter Crooks, who was also a member of Rotary Inner West and passed away in September. Peter was very supportive of the ministry of St Mark's Quilters, so it was quite an emotional occasion for us all.

This year we hope to keep on encouraging our keen group of quiltmakers to keep trying out new quilting techniques as they develop their creativity and, at the same time, bring a warm quilty hug to those who need it.

We love because God first loved us.