Anticipation

Walking Chester in the park yesterday morning I enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my skin, and with it the promise of summer just around the corner.

 

The prospect of spending the day ahead with these lovely ladies* from St Mark’s Quilters put a spring in my step too.

…and birthday girls Di B and Sue (below)

* In addition to Kirstin, Perdita, Margaret, and Cath who somehow eluded my camera this time.

As our finished quilts pile up there’s a happy sense of anticipation of the day when they’ll be handed over to the two organisations we support – RPA Hospital’s Newborn Intensive Care Unit and the KU Marcia Burgess Autism Specific Early Learning & Care Centre (known as “The Marcia”).

This month’s finishes make great eye candy!

Three kindy quilts by Barb

 

Three kindy quilts by Sophie and Susan, who like to work as a team.

 

A kindy quilt (on the left) by Gillian and a Blanket of Love by Di C

 

A kindy quilt made by Margaret from a charm pack, and two sweet little Blankets of Love made with hexies that she cut with Paddington Patchworkers’ new Go! Baby cutter.

 

A kindy quilt by Perdita

 

A kindy quilt by Susie

You might recall Kirstin’s knitted patchwork quilt, started last year, in softest fine cotton using delicate shades of lemon, green, tangerine and blue.

We had helped her lay out the squares into a pleasing pattern some time ago, then taken a photo of the layout and wrapped each block’s pieces in plastic wrap and numbered them. So even though the project had been put on hold for a little while it was a relatively easy matter for Kirstin to take up where she left off.

Another slow-burner (you know I’m a huge fan of the slow-burner myself!) is this pretty quilt Amanda’s working on. Today she added the first of two borders and I think this yellow is just perfect (being a huge fan of yellow in quilts too!). I can’t wait to see the final border soon.

We’re also eagerly anticipating the induction of our new minister, Michael Jensen, on 10th October. It’s been a whole year since Boak died and with the dedication of a beautiful plaque to his memory in the church on 1st September it’s now time for us to look to the future.

Finally, on a personal note, I’m anticipating two exciting arrivals this week. This little person, my new grandbaby, is due any day now, and I simply can’t wait to meet him/her!

And my daughter, Sarah, is arriving home from the US for a holiday. We’re going to have the best time!

Yes, that is a snake

Di

143 Blankets of Love, a dozen humidicrib covers and a bunch of beanies!

 

This was the jumbo-sized delivery that Di B, Margaret and I had the pleasure of giving to the Royal Prince Alfred (Sydney) Neonatal Intensive Care Unit last week, after a wonderfully productive year by our St Mark’s (Darling Point) Quilters.

 

Fundraising Manager Dahlia Brigham and Associate Professor David Osborn, Director of the Newborn Intensive Care Unit, were excited too, as they unpacked our Blankets of Love.

Pretty humidicrib covers, like this one made by Gillian, not only shield tiny babies from the bright lights of the nursery, but help to make it look much less sterile for the families who need to spend so much time there.

The RPA Neonatal Intensive Care Nursery does amazing work helping tiny bubs, some born as early as 26 weeks’ gestation, to survive. I saw one little poppet so tiny her hands were the size of my thumbs and almost transparent!

As well as making quilts, Margaret knits tiny beanies and a visit to the nursery is always an opportunity for her to personally hand over these special gifts to any parents there at the time.

As you can imagine, there are always tears (happy ones!). It’s just so heartening to see how a small gesture like this can brighten the day for a mum of a newborn bub struggling with health issues.

Here’s sweet little ‘A’ (below) and her lovely mum with Margaret (above).

At one stage we looked around and realised we’d lost Margaret, but it was soon obvious where she was when camera flashes started coming from the other end of the nursery. A grateful family was taking her photo. She is such a star!

Our enthusiastic quilters make this all possible, and we’re ever so grateful for our supporters {you know who you are}.

Did I say we love what we do?

 Di

So, what happened to the sheep?

Do ewe remember these?

Back in December Di B, Helen and I helped out our neighbouring parish by knitting seven googly-eyed sheep for their Christmas outreach.

Almost as much fun as the knitting was the photographic session we had before popping our sheep in a bag and delivering them to our friend Jane.

We met up with Jane over coffee a few weeks ago, and she reported that these fat little fellows were a great hit. Where did they end up?

Bo Peep looks as if she’s enjoyed a little too much Christmas cheer!

Around a dozen cafes and shops in the neighbourhood around St John’s agreed to display a sheep for the 10 days leading up to Christmas Eve.

   They gave their sheep names, and children did the rounds visiting the shops on the Messy Christmas Sheep Trail and compiling a list of names that they handed in at the church for some prizes.

Finally, the sheep were all gathered in and took pride of place at the children’s Christmas Eve service.

They were a great link between St John’s and the community as adults and children alike took ownership of “their” sheep!

* * *

Please pop back tomorrow (Tuesday) for more fun when the It’s All About Me Blog Hop starts. It’ll be my turn on the first day, along with nine other lovely bloggers.

Here’s the entire schedule.

Tuesday, February 19
Just Let Me Quilt
Sunshine Quilting
Spoilt Dog Quilts
Karen at That Other Blog
Grammie Q
Gracie Oliver Arts
Marjorie's Busy Corner
SnippetsNScraps (that’s me!)
Sowing Stitches
Pigtales and Quilts

Wednesday, February 20
Buzzing and Bumbling
Cherries Prairie Primitives
Kwilty Pleasures
Sew On And So Forth
Sew. Darn. Quilt.
A Stitch In Time
Doodling In My Mind
Moosestash Quilting
A Patchwork Life
Vickie at That Other Blog
Susie's World

Thursday, February 21
Kris Loves Fabric
The Quilting Alleycat
Cat Patches
Bumbleberry Stitches
Chickadees Country Cottage Crafts
In Stitches and Seams
Why-Knot-Kwilt
Quilting Unleashed
Rosemary at That Other Blog
Thimblemouse & Spouse
Sew Many Yarns

Friday, February 22
A Little Bit of Lorene
Life In The Scrapatch
Boston Bits
I Love Wool
Patchouli Moon Studio
As Sweet As Peaches
Just Quilt It
Grandmama's Stories
The Slow Quilter
Robin at That Other Blog
Scrapbook-ChickADoodle

Monday, February 25
Quilting Lines
Mountain Delights
Jane's Fabrics and Quilts
The Fuzzy Hat Quilter
Ramblings of an Empty Nester
NautiStitcher
Quilt Doodle Designs
Living Life
Freemotion By The River
The German Mom
Stitchin'ByThe Lake

Tuesday, February 26
Pat Sloan's Blog
To Love Handmade
Feathered Nest Studio
Selina Quilts
Gypsy Dreamer Quilts
Sheila's Quilt World
Meadowbrook
13 Woodhouse Road
Zellerwear
Stitches of Love
Janice at That Other Blog
In The Sewing Basket

Wednesday, February 27
The Passions of Cliodana
QuiltMamas
Marathon Quilter
Marla's Crafts
Fiber Babble
Simple Sew
Sewn Seabees
Charlotte at That Other Blog
Nini's Patchwork
Charlotte's Creations
Ipiece2-Mary
My Spoolish Art

Thursday, February 28
Cherry Blossoms
Hill Valley Quilter
Dachsies With Moxie
I Like To QuiltBlog
Quilt Smiles
More Stars In Comanche
Tea Time Creations
Shedding the Wolf
Life, Quilts, and a Cat Too
Judy at That Other Blog
Madame Samm

Aussie readers, please note you’ll have to wait till 4pm tomorrow because this is a world-wide blog hop and we all have to publish our posts at the same time – Central Standard Time (CST) in the USA.

Then …. Let the fun begin!

 Di

Coming out of hiding, and helping out with a little knit-ivity

There’s been a little (kindly) bleating lately in response to my blog neglect. I won’t name names – ewe know who ewe are .

So I’ve crawled out from beneath the enormous pile of paperwork that has kept me occupied of late to tell you what I’ve been up to creatively.

{“So, what’s with the sheep?”}

There’s much to do as I prepare to downsize, and while I have a tendency to whine about the size of the challenge it has indeed been helpful to have a task to focus on. I love spending time with my friends and my beautiful family too.

But every now and then, like when I look into my supermarket trolley of purchases for a household of one, I find myself again quite overcome by a deep sadness and despair. 

One of the very best antidotes to feeling sorry for myself has been helping others, if only in a small way. We all need to be needed, don’t we?

{“So, what’s with the sheep?”}

A few weeks ago our friend Jane, from the neighbouring parish of St John’s Darlinghurst, phoned to ask if Team Di (Di B and myself) could help her out.

She was organising a Messy Christmas community outreach for St John’s, and urgently needed knitters to make enough sheep to be placed in shops and businesses in the streets around the church for ten days leading up to  Christmas.

Here’s how their church described the Messy Church Christmas Trail…

The Messy Church Christmas Trail
As you know we are starting our Messy Church
Service next year. To introduce this to the community
we are going to have a Messy Christmas Service
on Christmas Eve and to encourage people
along to that we are going to have a Messy Christmas
Sheep Trail. The idea is that we knit sheep,
(that's right knit!) and offer them to businesses that
we have contact with on Victoria Street. They are allowed to name them and
we then have forms and local families can go to each business and find the
sheep and its name and fill it out. There will be prizes and each form will have
the Christmas story and details of our services on it.

No problem, we said, and with a little help from Di’s mother Margaret and our friend Helen in no time we had seven fat sheep!

They didn’t have to be perfect (thanks, Jane), in fact “quirky” was the word she used. We happen to specialise in “quirky”, and I think our seven sheep certainly are individuals!

 

At the end of the time the sheep are to be rounded up and taken back to St John’s for a children’s Christmas celebration!

They might have quite a few tales to tell by then.

I have lots to share with you here in the next week, but now it’s time I dived back into that paperwork. Bottoms up!

Di