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! 

Smiles all round

What a day we had for our St Mark's Quilters Christmas break-up lunch recently! 

The sun shone brightly, if a little too warmly, and we had all the essentials: puppies, yummy festive food, and lots of fabric. 

Michaela's smile said it all, as she obligingly posed with her web-pieced kindy quilt (in progress) to show Linda Hungerford how well she's put into practice her Stitchin' Mission lessons learnt seven years ago.

The only stony face in sight was this rather pensive fellow on the church wall.

We welcomed our newest recruit, Elsa, Di B's new golden retriever puppy, and I'm happy to say Chester was a complete gentleman. He even dressed for the occasion in his Christmas bandana, made by Di B. 

After a tentative introduction the two of them went on to play happily all day.

Chester even allowed Elsa "win" their wrestling match.

With our Autism Puzzle quilt for The Marcia finished, this was the perfect opportunity to photograph it in the garden where the children play after church.

 We're very happy with the way it's turned out. It's been a long time coming (we designed it ourselves) and in the new year we plan to present it to the KU Marcia Burgess Autism Specific Early Learning and Care Centre to hang in their reception area.

Of course there were other beautiful new quilts too. Like this Blanket of Love from Sue M.

And this sunshiny one donated by our quilting friend Claire who made it in memory of her friend's little bub who passed away in childbirth. 

Her friend didn't want a Blanket of Love for herself, preferring to have Claire donate it instead to RPA Hospital, so in a thoughtful gesture, Claire also made a perfect miniature version of this (already tiny) quilt to give to her friend to keep.

Gail O ran up this pirate quilt, sure to be a hit with a little person at The Marcia next year.

And Gillian couldn't "bear" to stop at just one teddy Blanket of Love.

There were more, but I'll pop them on our Blankets of Love and Kindy Quilts pages in the next few days where you can see them. Here's a little taste.

 Lunch was a fancier affair than usual, as we co-ordinated to bring delicious food, both sweet and savoury, to create a Christmas party. The table looked wonderful!

 I'm continually surprised to meet quilters, and hear that they follow Snippets 'n' Scraps and look forward to seeing what our St Mark's Quilters have been up to. It's incredibly heartwarming to our group, so we want to say a big "thank you" and wish you all a wonderful Christmas, wherever in the world you are.

May you know God's love for you at Christmas and always.