We love our work

The cricket's on the radio, carols are playing in the supermarket, and there's barely a space left in my engagement calendar. Yes, Christmas is almost upon us, and with our Christmas break-up workshop and lunch this coming Saturday it's high time I caught up with sharing our St Mark's Quilters' October doings.

 There were some truly amazing kindy quilt finishes.

Di B brought along her cot-sized Paint Box quilt, beautifully quilted on her domestic machine.

Sue M was working on the placement of pieces for her gorgeously scrappy hexagon "I Spy" quilt.

Michaela was stitching down the binding on her latest kindy quilt.

Perdita was cutting sashings.

And Michelle, Liz, Margaret and Gail were just concentrating hard. You'll see some of their beautiful finished work if you click on the Blankets of Love and Kindy Quilts for "The Marcia" tabs above.

Our lovely Barb usually drives down all the way from the Central Coast to be with us, but sadly she couldn't make it. 

This time Susie W won the gold star for coming furthest - from Orange! We've missed Susie since she and her DH retired and drove off for a tree-change earlier this year, so it was wonderful to have her back, if only for a visit.

Di B and I continued our tag-team process as we started on the binding for the Autism Puzzle quilt we're making for the reception area of the KU Marcia Burgess Autism Specific Early Learning and Care Centre at Liverpool.

Creating quilts always makes us happy. Sometimes it's laugh-out-loud happy, especially when we're working together. Sometimes not. 

Even making a Blanket of Love gives us deep joy, trusting and praying it will warm the heart of a grieving parent. Only rarely, though, does it become 'personal'.

A friend contacted us recently with a special request. Some friends of hers had just lost their much-wanted and loved baby girl, born far too early, and she wondered if we had a Blanket of Love she could give them.

We chose this pretty starry hexagon quilt made by Gillian, stitched on a personalised label to the back, with the bub's name, and sent it to her parents (via our friend) with much love from St Mark's Quilters. 

We've never met this family, but being able to make this little gesture felt so good. 

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Twin quilts = Double the fun

One of my most satisfying quilt finishes this year has been these two cot-sized quilts I made for my young friend Alex's twin baby daughters.

Though they were possibly the worst kept secret ever because I couldn't resist sharing sneak peeks on Instagram, I wanted to wait until they were in Alex's hands before sharing here.

Alex likes to keep her home decor to a restrained palette of grey and white, with splashes of colour. So last year I made this grey, white and yellow quilt for her newborn baby boy, Atticus.

Knowing that this time she was expecting twin girls, and being something of a pink-lover myself, it was a no-brainer to choose a pink and grey colour scheme. 

Both quilts consisted of basically the same design, scrappy triangles of pink bunting fused and machine appliquéd to a whole cloth background. The girls are fraternal twins, so I wanted their quilts to have a similar appearance so they look matching in their cots, but with easily spotted differences so there are no mix-ups when they're older and want to quickly grab their own quilt to snuggle under while watching TV.

This quilt belongs to baby Harper Emerson Indiana, and the background fabric is white dots on grey.

... and here is Harper asleep on her quilt. I like to think that's a tiny smile of contentment.

The really fun part of making these quilts was being able to cut loose and try out lots of free motion quilting fillers. Some of the designs came out of my imagination, having seen something similar on the internet.

I like the way the matchstick quilting lines in this circle throw the flying geese design up into relief.

Some designs, like this next one, were created with some high tech help, in the form of the Westalee Spin-e-fex Snowflake templates. Along with a ruler foot to my sit-down domestic sewing machine, a vintage Bernina 1230, it was really quite easy to stitch this pattern.

But not all my tools were sophisticated. I also had some very low tech help, five bowls of assorted diameters that I kept close at hand and drew around (with my Sewline air-erasable pen) whenever I needed a new circle. It's fun to improvise!

This quilt belongs to baby Calliope Florence Eleanora, and the background fabric consists of tiny white stars on grey.

...and here's Calliope herself, fast asleep like her sister :-)

Grey is such a useful shade, and a great foil for any colour, whether pastel or bright, but it's not very easy to photograph. So here are a few more detail shots showing the quilting more clearly from the back.

 Oh, I do love how Harper and Calliope are already snuggling into their new quilts!

Harper's Quilt

Calliope's Quilt



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Happy birthday, Di B!

It's my colourful quilting buddy Di B's birthday today, so this post is all about her.

She's far too modest about her amazing quilt making talent, and doesn't have a blog of her own, so by way of a birthday surprise I'd like to share her latest, and greatest, quilt finish.

For her version of Julie Herman's Jaybird Quilts pattern, Arcade Game, Di carefully chose fabrics from Karen Lewis' Blueberry Park range in shades that would combine to accentuate the 3 dimensional effect of the baby blocks.

The day of our photo shoot couldn't have been more perfect, with plenty of sunshine to light up those colours and reveal the fabulous custom quilting by Linda Billett of Artisan Quilting.

With Sydney Harbour's deep blue water glinting below a perfectly cloudless sky it was this photographer's dream setting. 

In an effort to be a little "arty farty" we draped the quilt over a garden bench.

We tossed it nonchalantly over the rails of the jetty.

We spread it over a table.

And I imagined it as an inviting tablecloth with a party of friends gathered around for brunch in the sun.  

This quilt, however, was destined for something much more special. Di made it with great love for her grand-niece, Annemieke, who lives in Holland.

Faced with many colours, and wondering which one to pick for the binding, Di chose this fun stripe and used them all!  

All that Aussie sunshine has now been wrapped up in this beautiful quilt, and it's settled into its new home, on a little girl's bed  on the other side of the world.

Did Annemieke like her new quilt? 

No ....... she LOVED it!

Take a bow, Di B, you deserve it. 

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Fast forward

While our industrious St Mark's Quilters have been working hard over the past two

months, I've been a tad slack as far as blogging is concerned. So here's a quick catch-up ...

Quilting is always a perfect midwinter activity, made even more enjoyable when it's shared with friends.

We've tried new techniques and designs, like Di B's free motion quilting.

And Sue M's oversized "I Spy" hexies, the perfect way to use novelty scraps. I can't wait to see this one finished!

Don't you just love Gail O's hand pieced diamonds using these sweet Lucy Atwell style fabrics teamed with fresh minty green?

 We've also encouraged each other, like Margaret admiring the quilt Michelle is making for her grandson. 

We've hand stitched plenty of bindings.

We've made a start on a special quilt for the reception area at The Marcia.

And we've kept our energy up with some truly delicious baked goods from the kitchens of our quilters.

Most importantly of all, we've enjoyed being together, sharing a laugh, and helping others by creating some amazing quilts.

The 'icing on the cake', so to speak, was when we received this beautiful 'thank you' gift from the KU Marcia Burgess kindy, for autistic children, a folder full of heartwarming photos of the little recipients of our quilts. 

To see the individual finished quilts, pop over to the Blankets of Love and Kindy Quilts for The Marcia pages (see tabs above).