Sunday, February 18, 2018

Off and running for our ninth year!

We're back!!!

Sashiko by Gail O.

Time flies when you're having fun, and that's certainly true when St Mark's Quilters come together!
There was plenty going on last Saturday when we met for the first time this year.

Barb was sewing a label on one of her latest Blankets of Love.


By Barb

By Barb

Di C was carefully laying out her fabrics and labelling them for a new project (watch this space!)


 Gail D and Gillian were stitching down bindings, that most popular of activities at St Mark's Quilters because it needs little concentration and we can chat and giggle with no worries.




Sue M was trimming HSTs.

Susan was machining pretty pastel strips together.


While Liz knitted, Margaret, our Hexagon Queen, got "quacking" on a new hexi quilt that cleverly matched her outfit!



Di B has been working on a gift for a very special 'Someone', a Cathedral Windows cushion in the most elegant of pink florals.


And by the end of the day there were even more finishes. 

By Susan and Sophie

By Gail D

By Gillian

By Di J

It was a great start to our ninth year!



One year ends and another begins

Here we are in February, starting another year of stitching with St Mark's Quilters, when it seems no time since we were celebrating Christmas with our break-up lunch in the garden at St Mark's!

As usual there was plenty of colour and creativity with these finished cot sized quilts added to our collection for the KU Marcia Burgess Autism Specific Early Learning Centre.

By Sophie and Susan

By Sophie and Susan

By Di J

By Barb

I'm pleased to say we once again have enough quilts to give every child who starts at The Marcia this year a quilt of their very own.

Over the years some of our quilters have moved out of Sydney, but one of the aspects of our group that warms my heart is how our "absentee quilters" continue to keep in touch with us, and even make quilts for our cause. One such quilter is Cath, who recently gave us these pretty Blankets of Love. 




 Liz had made this lovely cross-hatched creation.

And Gail finished another sweet Blanket of Love in her signature dusty pink, muted style.

Sue M was busy making a set of bright placemats for a family Christmas gift.


And Di B put her best foot forward to show off her latest sneakers - in rainbow colours!


Our quilters ask for nothing in return for their work, they make quilts simply to put their faith into action. But Di B and I like to give each one a small gift at Christmas to show how much we appreciate them, and this year we made magnetic pin bowls.



It's not difficult to find a tutorial on the internet, if you want to make one for yourself, and they are so useful because the pins cling to the bowl, even if the whole lot slides off the table! Oops!


 Our quilting dogs, Chester and Elsa, made sure they were rewarded with treats too. They always do!


 In January we were delighted to accept a $300 donation from Rotary Inner West towards our batting and fabric, in continued memory of our late friend Peter Crooks.

It was also time for us to deliver 54 gorgeous little Blankets of Love to Danielle Achikiam, Volunteer Co-Ordinator at RPA Hospital's Newborn Intensive Care Unit, but not before Di B snapped these beautiful shots on a sunny summer's day to show them off in a particularly Australian way.



Don't our Blankets of Love look glorious hanging from an iconic Hills Hoist, flapping in the breeze beside Sydney Harbour!


Danielle was delighted with them, and that makes us happy too! 




Sunday, February 4, 2018

Harlequin Hugs

After a couple of months of quilting deprivation, November brought more than enough reasons to do a (careful) little happy dance, not least being able to use my wrist again.

First was the publication of my first quilt project, Harlequin Hugs, in Quilters Companion #88



When Editor Michelle Marvig asked me to design a project, I knew from the start that I wanted to use fabrics from Vanessa Christensen’s gorgeous V and Co Ombre range to create a sweet cot quilt.

Having bought a rainbow selection of these from Amy Johnson (Amy’s Quilting Adventures) when we met up at Quiltcon Savannah last year, all I needed was a little more yardage and I was all set to ‘paint’ with fabric.






If you’ve seen the direction my quiltmaking has been going in the last couple of years you’ve probably gathered that I’m a tad crazy about creating texture on quilts by adding extra layers of surface interest. 

Well, Harlequin Hugs has plenty of that!


At the same time I tried to come up with a design that wouldn’t be too challenging for most quilters. 






I was touched by this introduction, and really happy with the magazine photo. Don’t you just love that sunshine yellow garden bench?



It felt good to be back!