January 2017

Hello to the New Year! 

Our first meeting for 2017 was on the 19th January.  It was just great seeing everyone after a 2 month summer break.  Several birthdays in January, so we all congratulated one another and had a slice of Colleen's delicious cake.

Items discussed were possible places for us to donated to including a refuge and a new (to us) nursing home in Ashfield.  Jill showed us the Domestic Violence Annual Report for 2015/16 where we were credited in two places.  We have also been approached by a quilting magazine for an article about our group, which is exciting.  I'll keep you posted on that.

Everyone was super productive over the Christmas period.  So be prepared for a lot of photos.  And this is only half of it as we don't photograph the incomplete tops.

The first 7 were made and quilted by Evelyn:

 

The above quilt is a "Stack & Whack" technique.  You line up several layers of fabric on the fabric repeat, then cut through the lot.  You can see the effect in the image below, where all the blades of the star shape are the same.  Its brilliant and very effective!

 

The next 9 are made and quilted by Robin (she said she was clearing out the backlog in her sewing room!).

Cute aeroplanes

 

The next two were partly completed tops, finished by Dasha, quilted by Evelyn

 

Next two were made by Dasha and quilted by Bev.

This was made entirely from orphan blocks

 

Next two are Bev's work..

 

This one was made by Bev & quilted by Evelyn.

Jan completed this quilt from a bunch of quilt as you go hexagons.

 

Jill made this little top, quilted by Dasha

 

Last, last, lucky last, for this time at any rate, quilt made by Dasha & quilted by Robin.

Thanks for sticking it out to read to the end of this super long post.

Well, Look What I Found

I was about to do the first post for 2017, when I suddenly spied a Draft post!

I almost ignored it (from embarrassment at my slackness), but then I thought I should polish it up and post it.  This one is from our second meeting of October, 2016, and of course I don't have my notes for it, so it will be a wordless post.  Thankfully I put the maker's name on each of the photos, so I can at least tell you that.

The first two are by Bev:

 

Next up are 5 children's quilts were made by Cheryl:

Cute little pup in the centre of this one

 

These two were donated tops.  Cheryl finished them off and quilted them. 

 

And the last 3 are by Evelyn.

So.  Short & sweet, but at least I have posted it.  See you next time.

Goodbye to 2016

This is the last post for 2016, and a report on our last working day - 17 November.  Bit late coming, I know, but things got a bit hectic over December.

Jill provided us with some statistics for our creativity for this year:

91 x lap quilts
155 x children's quilts
64 x single bed quilts
1 wall hanging

Total: 311 quilts

The quilts were distributed to: - Palliative Care Unit, Concord Hospital; Kalparrin Day Care (Dementia Unit); Meals on Wheels Concord; Ronald McDonald House; Domestic Violence NSW; Anglicare; Kathleen York House; St Mary's Nursing Home; Meals on Wheels Strathfield.

Besides this we gave 69 x baby wraps to Westmead Hospital for fund raising by the volunteers; 11 x raffle quilts to various organisations and 6 quilts to people in the community who were not well.

Here are a batch of quilts laid out being selected for their recipients:

 

The next two quilts were made by Jan.  The first one was a donation with the back ground pieced and one or two of the leaves appliqued.  Jan completed and quilted it.  It was selected to be given to the Senior Citizens Club as a prize for their Christmas lunch to be held on the 5th December. 

 

Beautiful Celtic style applique on this one:

 

 

This sweet little children's quilt top was one made by Shirley, our friend who lost her life to cancer a couple of years ago.  It was quilted by me (Dasha).  If you wish, there is a post about Shirley which you can visit by clicking here.

Block detail

 The next two quilts were made by Jill.

Quilted by Evelyn

Quilted by Maria

Next up are 2 by Cheryl:

Jill used a pretty toile as the centres of the blocks on this one:

 

Bev made two strippy quilts:

 

And Maria was into the strips as well.

Last but not least, two by Evelyn:

Our last meeting for the year was scheduled for 1 December.  We met at the Country Club at Breakfast Point where we had a lovely lunch.  I forgot to take a group photo, but here is one of part of the view from the balcony.  Not bad eh?

 

See you all in New Year.

First November Meeting and a Lovely Surprise

I thought I had better set to and write at least one of the outstanding posts from November since we are meeting again tomorrow.  That will be our Christmas lunch so no work will be done, just a lot of laughing, eating and talking.  Not necessarily in that order. 😃  There might also be the odd glass of wine there too.  We are making a donation to the Flying Doctor Service instead of giving gifts to one another this year.

The group has had several invitations for Christmas functions - The Mayor's Morning Tea on the 30th November; the Senior Citizen's Lunch on 5th December; and Catholic Care has invited us to an End of Year Mass and Lunch.  We are sending several members of the group to each of these functions.

Concord Hospital advised us that our last donation raised $250 in a raffle. 

Lots of lovely quilts came in.  We are so lucky to receive donations of completed tops sometimes.  The first three quilts are donations.

Cheryl quilted this pretty one:

Donated top

Look at the detail in this.  The 9 patches were made using 2" squares.

 

 

These two are Jelly Roll Race quilts.  They were donations, and were quilted by Maria.

 

 

 Bev made this cute basket quilt.

 

Jan made this one.  Click on the photo to see a larger version of the photo.  The shapes are terrific! 

 

The designs are called Tangrams, and she was inspired by this web page: http://www.tangram-channel.com/  There are literally a bazillion shapes you can make up with the simple triangle/square shape. 

 

This is also Jan's work:

 

Lovely, mushrooms, butterflies and other insects.  There's also a frog and a turtle.  All in Jan's trademark needle turn applique.

Next up is Evelyn's fun kids quilt.  What little boy wouldn't love the dinosaurs?

 

And this one is by Evelyn too.  Great quilt for a man.

 

Jill made the following quilt, and Evelyn quilted it.

 

And this is another Jill/Evelyn combo.

 

And now for the surprise.  Back in one of the posts I did in September (which you can see by clicking here, I showed you a pretty little pink quilt made by Robin.

 

 

This quilt made it's way to Ronald McDonald House and ended up on the bed of a sweet little girl (I'll call her "A" here) who needed an operation at Westmead.  Now the mother (I shall call her B here) was an enterprising soul, and found our blog address on the label.  B wasn't a blogger, so had to create a profile for herself before she could leave a message of thanks to Robin.  When the email came to me, I forwarded it to Robin, but had to reply on the blog as B was a No Reply Blogger.  A few more messages flew back and forth, and finally we received a couple of the loveliest photos of A with the quilt on her bed.  I am not sharing these photos for obvious reasons.  Wasn't that lovely of B to track us down just to say thank you?  Makes me want to go sew another quilt.  LOL