Second Meeting for July

Last week we all met for our second meeting in July.

Jill told us that we had delivered 7 lap quilts for the mums and 7 quilts for their kids to Kathleen York House.

We have also had a mention in the Concord Senior Citizen's Club's President's Report advising that Melica Milic from Westmead Children's Hospital had accepted our donation of baby wraps and quilts at their morning tea on June 26th.

Here are the quilts which came in this week. 

The first two were donated by Yvonne, a friend of Robin's from QuiltNSW.

 

Thank you Yvonne!

 

Next is a quilt made by a friend of Dasha's, Gillian from Friday Quilters.  It was quilted by Cheryl.

Cheryl quilted some great feathers in each block.

 

Cheryl also quilted this one made by Dasha.

 

 

And Evelyn made the last two.



 

Each time I post I show photos of the finished quilts, but that really doesn't give the full picture; there is just so much that goes on each meeting that never makes an appearance because it is "background" stuff.  So starting with this post, I thought I would put together some stories of the quiet ones who work away in the corners and are never seen by the public.  Without them, we wouldn't exist!

 

Today I want to start by talking about the donations.  We get a large number of those, mostly fabrics, but sometimes part finished tops or blocks (we call them UFO's or Un-Finished Objects), and occasionally a completed top or quilt.  This is part of what came in this week (I wasn't quick enough with the camera, and some had already been taken for sorting). 

 

This week's donations came from Lesley and Yvonne, and piles of that were novelties featuring animals especially dogs.  Amongst this generous haul were several completed quilt tops made by Yvonne (remember the first two quilts I showed you earlier in this post?)

 

Each week Ann sorts the donations, measures and folds the fabrics and then finally stores them into colour piles in the cupboard.  The smaller pieces go into tubs stored under the stage, and the UFO's in a separate tub.  Ann patiently toils away keeping our stash in some sort of order.  This cupboard is where the larger pieces for backings etc., are stored.

You should have seen that cupboard before Ann decided to take that job on!!  Awesome job Ann. 

Group members often grab some fabric from the stash to go with the quilt they are making, or for borders.  Quite often you'll find one of us rummaging around for some inspiration too. 

This is Coleen.  She does loads of the ironing, and is always available for the other back of the scenes jobs.  She almost always manages to source the donations for us too, and brings in huge quantities from her contacts.

 

The last couple of weeks she has been in the back corner, quietly putting together a quilt top.  Remember I told you a few posts ago about the kits Evelyn has been cutting up for us from the scraps? 

 

Jackie has been working with Coleen, and is also putting together a top.  Here she is laying out the rows; she's nearly finished hers - hers is the green, and Coleen's the purple on the right.

 

Jackie is usually in that back corner piecing backings, and many of the quilts you see featured in the posts have backings made by Jackie.  She makes life heaps easier for the others doing that.

More on the back of the scenes jobs next time.