Covering up

They’ve arrived, right on time. Those chilling August winds. Too lazy to go round you, they go right through you, blowing off the snow, not far away in the Blue Mountains.

Scarves and warm coats were de rigeur for our early arrivals at St Mark’s Quilters this morning, but we were soon warmed up and ready for another day of stitching together.

Today we introduced humidicrib covers into the mix of charity quilting projects we enjoy working on.

Here’s one Di B prepared earlier, made from a pattern the nurses at the RPAH Newborn Intensive Care Nursery gave us, with flaps they can lift up to access those arm holes when they need to attend to a sick premmie baby.

Those crazy red, yellow, green and blue sock monkeys, and the rainbow bias-cut binding, were enough to get plenty of creative juices flowing.

Gillian’s cover, scattered with giraffes, will have a pinwheel pieced panel across the top.

Friendly, circus lions and zippy zigzag binding were fun choices for Di B’s second cover.

Barb’s chosen teddy bears and dots – always a hit.

And Sue’s pink, lime, lemon and aqua chickens are absolutely scrumptious.

They’re reasonably straight forward to make, the biggest decision being how to quilt them. As you can see, most of our quilters have gone with sensible options like meandering and straight line quilting which take little time and compliment the cover designs.

However Someone simply couldn’t resist the opportunity to practice her free motion machine quilting, and went just a little overboard with some very free-form swirls, flowers and feathers. Consequently her cover has taken slightly longer to make. Once she’s sewn her binding on in a few days though, this Someone will share her finished humidicrib cover with you

Of course we made quilts as well, gorgeous pastel baby quilts for newborns (with a few in stronger colours thrown in for those modern parents who like something a little different), and a couple of child-sized quilts for pre-schoolers at The Marcia (KU kindy for autistic children).

You can see more detailed photos of all these quilts by clicking on the Blankets of Love tab above and scrolling down to the end of our growing gallery of quilts.

My daughter Sarah, home for a 3 week visit, worked on finishing the sweet little blue toile quilt she started last year before she flew off to the USA and Botswana.

Gail taught Helen to paper-piece hexagons. Yes, she’s addicted already!

Michelle learnt from Sue how to square off her tumbler quilt, made from luscious hand-dyes by Lisa at Dyed and Gone to Heaven.

Margaret brought along her latest quilt-as-you-go quilt, all in blue for her blue-loving friend who’s turning 80 in a few weeks.

And we all played with our new group “toy”, the Simplicity Binding Maker. Suddenly everyone had to make a binding today! We had such fun watching those metres and metres of crisp, folded bindings emerge, all ready to sew on our projects.

With that chill wind outside, misty rain drifting past from time to time, and some of us facing life’s challenges and sadness, the idea of comfort was very much on our minds today - the comfort we can give others by using the gifts God’s given us to make quilts, and the comfort He can give us if we bring our worries to him.

Di