Let's get blogging again!

I'm truly sorry for the "radio silence" here over recent months. If you follow me on Instagram (@darlingdi) you'll know I'm still alive and quilting, taking photos, working and spending time with family, friends and my gorgeous labrador, Chester (@chesterthewonderlab). 

If not, I hope I can fill in the gaps for you soon, as I break into a rather breathless and ungainly run in an effort to catch up.

If there's one thing guaranteed to spur me into blogging, it's the opportunity to praise my friends, in this case all the wonderful quilters, past and present, who have been part of St Mark's Quilters. 

Last week marked a rather special anniversary for us. 

It was eight years since the Sunday when did something very unusual for me! I stood up in our church (eek!) and announced to a full congregation, consisting of exactly two quilters (myself and Di B), that we were about to hold a Stitchin' Mission, five weeks of beginner quilt making classes, to be taught by my friend Linda Hungerford. 

You can read the background here . 

Di B and I (Team Di) had each made sample quilts in the weeks leading up to that Sunday reveal, and had them on display, with a clip board on hand to sign up those keen to be part of our venture.

Something amazing happened!

Two dozen eager beginner quilt makers came forward to learn to make a quilt for the children enrolling at the brand new KU Marcia Burgess Autism Specific Early Learning and Care Centre (these days known as "The Marcia"), many experienced quilters offered to be helpers in the classes, and several other friends made quilts to the specifications required, to add to the number.

Heatwave conditions on the last day of class did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of these generous-hearted ladies, seen here with the results of their work. 

Linda's infectious enthusiasm had made the 5 week course so much fun that quite a few wanted to continue, and so St Mark's Quilters was born.

Over the intervening years a few quilters have come and gone, but we've retained a core bunch of around 12 to 15 ladies who come from near and far to stitch and share friendships on the second Saturday of the month from Feb to November.

We've broadened our vision and now also make tiny Blankets of Love and humidicrib covers for Royal Prince Alfred Hospital's Newborn Intensive Care Unit.

If you have a little time, you might be interested in clicking on the Pages tabs to see some of the creations of our little group, an estimated 800+ quilts (not all photographed). Not bad for a group that grew from almost nothing!

Di B and I are thankful for Linda's initial boost and teaching, and proud to be part of this diverse but passionate group, whose ages from youngest to oldest range over 60 years.

Before I leave you (but not for long!) I'd like to show you my latest quilt finish for The Marcia. 

I can't claim to have pieced the quilt top, having found it as an "orphan" languishing in our SMQ stash, but it made me smile with the clever fabric choices someone made, and deserved to be finally finished.

I quilted it (in the ditch) and bound it, and here it is, proving that a quilt doesn't have to be complicated to become a potential treasure for a little child.

We don't usually give our community quilts a name, but I thought I'd make an exception this time and call it "Frogs Just Want to Have Fun". 

(Apologies for the Cyndi Lauper ear worm that will probably stay with you all day!)

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.

Sweet surprises

It's the second Saturday of the month, which means just one thing around here - St Mark's Quilters!

Every month a happy little bunch of quilters arrives, but sometimes the 'bunch' is smaller than we'd hoped for, always for very good reasons, and today was one of those days.

However Di B and I have learnt that a St Mark's Quilters workshop is never without its delights, no matter how disappointing it might initially seem, and today brought enough sweet surprises to make it a beauty! 

Our first surprise was that, being able to fit around a single large table, instead of scattered around the room, we could all enjoy sharing the one big conversation as we sewed. That conversation, of course, included how much we missed our absent friends traveling in far-flung destinations like France, New Guinea and New Zealand, others celebrating special occasions with family, and Michelle in hospital recovering from a major operation.

We love droppers-in, and today brought a brief surprise visit from Robyn, who used to sew with us. Then trainee pastry chef, and graduate of our 2009 Stitchin Mission, Michaela, popped in to stitch for an hour or so, bringing cake and her latest kindy quilt!

It was almost tag-team quilting as, soon after she left, Perdita arrived for the afternoon and brought this sweet little Blanket of Love.

With so much going on we were still a productive lot. Some, like Margaret, were more productive than others. She managed a spot of machine quilting...

... before moving on to an afternoon of knitting squares for a blanket.

Barb and Di C were binding like busy bees

Liz was preparing to pin her latest Blanket of Love.

And we all admired Di B's Milky Way quilt, another version of modern hexagons, using 1 inch hexies and laying them out a little differently. Just look at that quilted grid!

Susan and Sophie (the "S Team") pulled fabrics from our St Mark's Quilters stash for borders and backing on this cute outer space themed panel.

While Sophie wasted no time in cutting out the borders, Susan got to work on the machine stitching. I love watching quilty teamwork! 

Matching up coordinates from our stash of both purchased and donated fabrics isn't always as easy as this, and a piece of fabric can languish in the box for months waiting for the right person to see its potential.

That person is usually our clever Di C, and today she took some quite muted strips of country-themed prints, fashionable a few years ago, and after much rummaging found some lovely rich reds and golden yellows that will turn them into a bright, sunny kindy quilt to be treasured.

The sweet surprises just kept coming when we broke open a rather ordinary looking jelly roll and found a magnificent flower garden of fabrics. Sadly, no pics as I was busy admiring the fabrics, but hopefully by next time "The S Team" might be working on transforming them into a little girl's quilt.

Life, and our Lord, is full of unexpected beauty and blessings if we just learn to see them. Don't you agree? :-)

Smiles all round!

 For the fourth time in as many years the congregation at St Mark's, Darling Point, will find the church decked out in quilts this coming Sunday. I hope they bring their sunglasses!

Made by St Mark's Quilters, this batch of cheery quilt-love is bound for Springwood in the Blue Mountains where 193 houses were destroyed by catastrophic bush fires in October last year.

Since Linda Hungerford kick-started our quilting group with her exciting Stitchin' Mission in 2009 we've had an ongoing commitment to -

* Making a quilt for every boy or girl who enrols at the KU Marcia Burgess Autism Specific Early Learning and Care Centre (aka The Marcia) at Liverpool

and

* Making Blankets of Love, mini quilts, for the grieving parents of bubs at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital at Camperdown who sadly don't survive childbirth, or who spend time in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit because of serious health problems following birth.

However, from time to time, when emergencies crop up, and organisations put out a call for quilts as part of providing comfort to folk suffering as a result of natural disasters, we also like to help.

We've sent quilts to the victims of the January 2011 floods in Brisbane, the February 2011 Christchurch New Zealand earthquake, and last January's bush fires in Dunalley Tasmania.

So when Tracey Greenaway, co-ordinator of the Springwood Salvation Army Quilters, let it be known that she had a dream to have 500 quilts by March 2014 to be able to give every child in this hard hit community a quilt of his or her own, we joined in - as did a huge number of my quilting friends across Australia.

I just thought I'd share with you three quilts I've made or finished off for Springwood. After Sunday's Hanging of the Quilts you'll see what everyone else has made. It'll be worth the wait.

I pulled out a couple of quilt tops that had been waiting for their moment in the sun, and with some simple machine quilting and bindings they were ready to shine. Don't tell Linda, but I think this "Stairway to Heaven" quilt was the quilt top she and her granddaughter Celina made when they visited one of our Saturday workshops a couple of years ago. It was good to see it finished at last!

Here's another orphan quilt top I finished off, a "Noah's Ark" design.

Someone donated this backing fabric several years ago and it's my very favourite. Turning over the corner of a quilt and seeing these sunny, smiling faces just has to be the happiest surprise!

You've seen this rail fence quilt before. I made it last year when I was trying to use up some of my scraps.  Ha! Silly me. Of course they just multiplied.

 Though it was destined, at the time, for The Marcia, we like to keep a few quilts in reserve and I've decided this one will go to Springwood instead.

This quilt is all about blocks of colour rather than the individual fabric prints. For a "free" quilt I was very happy with the result.

But it wasn't until I looked closely at each of these three quilts when I was taking photographs today that I realised each one has oodles of smiles! Some are more obvious than others, but just look...

I really hope and pray they will bring a smile to their recipients, whoever they may be.