Rotary Meeting - 21 May

Last Wednesday, 21 May, I was honoured to have been invited to be the Guest Speaker at the Rotary Club of Drummoyne's meeting.

 

Rotary meets every Wednesday night for dinner at the Drummoyne Sailing Club, so that is where I headed for the talk.  The Rotary Club has supported Stitching Hearts for a number of years, and had decided to make another donation this year.  

 

 

I had set up a few quilts draped over a convenient table, and used them during the talk as exhibits, to show the different types and styles of quilt.

 

I had also put together a slide show of some of the quilts made during the last year or so, and had that running in the background on a large screen television while I spoke.

 

Good action shot (giggle).  At least I wasn't waving my arms about!

 

When discussing what might interest the members, my contact at the club, Ilia Hristoforidis, asked that I speak about my back ground, how I came to quilting, and my involvement with Stitching Hearts.  So that is what I did. 

 

After dinner, I was presented with the cheque by Ilia. 

 

 

We are so grateful for the support given us by Rotary members, and their enthusiasm for what we do at Stitching Hearts.  Although we get lots of donations of fabrics, it is mostly scraps, and we never have wadding donated, the single most expensive component of a quilt.  So the donations we receive from our supporters generally go towards the purchase of wadding and sometimes yardage for the backs of the quilts.  Without these donations we would not be able to support the organisations for which we make quilts, and many people would not benefit from a colourful quilt at the foot of their bed or over their knees.

 

Thank You Rotary!

We Are Back

Last Thursday was our first meeting since March.  It was great to see everyone after such a long break.  We only ever meet twice a month, but we didn't meet in April as there was new air conditioning going in and the hall was not available for us to use.

The long break meant that we had a lot of business to catch up with. 

We have been asked for donation of a quilt for a raffle for the annual lunch at the Senior Citizens Centre where we meet.  We also discussed the possibility of donating to the Concord Cancer Centre for fund raising.  And there is to be a trivia night to be held at the Golf Club to raise funds for Lifeline.

The Senior Citizen's Centre has also asked us to set up a display of our baby wraps, at their lunch.  Any money from their sale will be donated to Westmead Children's Hospital.

Aussie Hero Quilts (see here for more details) sent a letter of thanks to us.  Several of our members make quilts & laundry bags for the personnel deployed overseas, and the letter was formally acknowledging their input.

And now for some of the lovely quilts which came in that day.

First up was an enormous pile of about 40 baby wraps made by Jill and Cheryl.  They aren't big as they are meant as a wrap for new born babies, and they are all lined with lovely soft flannel.  They will be donated to Westmead Children's Hospital for the Nursery.  Here are some:

Evelyn was busy, and as always came in with a pile:

Such a striking quilt!  Orange is not a colour that is used very often.

 

 

These two sarongs were donated by a friend of Evelyn's.  They are beautiful, and the photos don't do them justice.

The next three quilts were donated to our group by Jane Picksley a friend of Robin's.  The two of them met at a Monica Poole quilting class.

Love this design.  Great quilt for a man.

 

These next two are made from the old favourite, the Disappearing 9 Patch pattern.  How different it looks when you use just 3 colours (instead of our usual scrappy look), and look at how the different fabrics change the overall appearance of the quilt.

 

Robin made and quilted this one.  She wasn't happy because of the "dull" colours, but I love it, brown being a favourite colour of mine.  I am sure the person who receives this will love it too.

 

Three tops made by Dasha. 

 

 

 

This quilt was made from blocks donated by Julia Peake and put together by Dasha. 

 

A few more came in after having binding and/or labels put on, but I have already shown you those in previous posts.