I might be a few days behind having been away but just found out that Handmade Help’s recipe book, Homemade is now available.  Pop on over if you want to get a copy – all proceeds to the Salvation Army.  Well done girls – a fantastic effort!

Thank you so much to everyone who was involved in any way with the Quilt Hanging or with making the quilts for those affected by the recent bushfires.  What an amazing effort!

Thanks go to……..

Girls from all over Australia who have sent us fabric, blocks or quilt tops

All the lovely ladies who have pieced, quilted and bound the gorgeous quilts

The people from church who worked in the kitchen and doing other things to support us on Saturday

To Jodie, Kellie and Kaye for lending us some of their special works – just helping to add another dimension to the display

AND to all the wonderful people who came along on the day to help make it the success that it was!  We were truly overwhelmed.   And thankyou for helping us raise the money we needed to make sure all the quilts were finished off ready for distribution.

The winner of the raffle was Marg Flood from Bendigo and she chose the candlewicking quilt….enjoy!

But the absolute highlight of the day was when two young girls who have suffered deep losses due to the bushfires came and chose their quilts – even though we were fighting back tears it was an incredible experience and makes all the hard work worthwhile.  This week we will start distributing the rest of the quilts and there will be a flickr group where you can view them all and will track where they are going  (I will post the link when I get it all organised).

is that the Selvedge Dress will be on display at the Quilt Hanging!  That’s right you can see it close up (but not close enough to touch…….no fingers on this masterpiece, we promise Jodie).  And what’s more there will be a door prize drawn every half an hour!  Thanks to the generosity of Jodie from Ric-Rac we have selvedge keyrings and patterns to give away……every 30 minutes!  And of course our raffle – the lucky winner will get to choose between two quilts – one in the traditional style with gorgeous candlewicking blocks and the other a modern fresh design in lime green and aqua. 

Apologies, not great photos at all but my ‘to-do’ list is FAR too long tonight to spend ages getting better ones!

And for those with sharp eyes, no the binding is not on in this photo but yes, it will be finished by Saturday!

Tickets will be on sale on the day – 1 for $2, 3 for $5 or 7 for $10.  Raffle will be drawn at 4pm.

BUSHFIRES QUILT HANGING

Come along and see over 40 quilts that have been made for survivors of the recent Victorian bushfires.

Lots of these quilts have been pieced together from blocks donated by people from all over Australia. 

Many have been sewn pooling fabric from different people’s stashes.

All have been made with love.

SATURDAY 20TH JUNE

11am – 4.30pm

LightHouse, Ashburton Uniting Church

3-7 Ashburn Grove, Ashburton, Vic, 3147

Gold coin donation entry.  Quilt for raffle.

Devonshire tea available.

All proceeds go towards professional quilting of  Bushfires Quilts.

Please come along if you can……and pass on to all your friends!!!

After a busy few weeks I finally pulled out all the things for the Bushfires Quilting Bee yesterday – and had a minor panic attack when I realised how many quilts are still half done!  But a friend came around last night and we managed to sort through everything and work out ‘the  plan of attack’!  Thanks so much to all the lovely ladies who have been working on quilts so far and have emailed me to let me know they have finished or close to – can’t wait to see the products of all your hard work!  And even more excited about getting the quilts out to the people who need them soon.

Here’s the details for our next Quilting Bee which is this Saturday!  We’d love to see as many people as possible there to help out – many hands make light work!  We have a few tops that need finishing and lots of tops that need quilting and some that need the binding hand sewn.  We also have lots more fabric that people have kindly donated so if there are enough people on the day we’ll have some blocks to make!

When: Saturday 23rd May 9.30am – 4.30pm

Where: LightHouse, Ashburton Uniting Church, 7 Ashburn Grove, Ashburton, 3147

What to bring: Your sewing supplies, fabric, lunch.  Morning and afternoon tea provided.

Contact: Jan Joseland on 0409 964 755 or info@sewjourn.net.au

Thanks to all those I have already heard from but if there is anyone else planning to come along please contact me to let me know……….as a bonus, we had a really fun day last time!

After a week of celebrating (and not doing much else!) it’s time to come back to the real world and catch up on all the things that have taken a back seat ……. there’s plenty of work to do, blogs to read, stitches to make…..and of course get organised for our next Bushfires Quilting Bee.  I’ve emailed everyone (I think) who was at the last ‘Bee’ to touch base and see where they are up to with their quilts – sorry if I have missed anyone – please send me an email if I have.  It sounds like all the quilts are coming along nicely!  Well done girls!  And my Mum’s sewing group have kindly stitched up lots of bags to store and gift the quilts in.  And the gift cards are done.  So that just leaves finishing off and probably doing a couple of ‘quilt as you go’ on the day….then we can get the quilts to the people that need them.  If you would like to be involved in any way please contact me.   

Here’s a couple of photos sent to me of quilts that lovely girls have been working on……

As for me…….I’m off here for a lesson on the new machine tomorrow (it makes me laugh how all the instruction books call it a ‘Sewing Computer’ not a machine!) so hopefully I’ll have some good things to show soon too………

…..more contributions towards the Bushfires Quilts  that is!  Last week (or maybe the week before as they have all blended in together lately!) I received a package from NSW containing – a quilt top, some blocks and some fabric – thankyou Stephanie!  Really looking forward to what we can finish them off to look like! 

(Sorry about the poor photo quality am short on time!  They ARE really nice!)

Am spending this week catching up on work and getting organised for a little party!  But after that it’s back into the Bushfire Quilts again because our next get-together is just around the corner.

Meanwhile some lovely ladies have been spending time at Sewjourn and have had some very nice things to say.

Where did Easter go?  I hope you enjoyed the break whatever you were doing.  We spent most of the weekend in Lancefield – a bit more gardening, oiling the deck and a few odd jobs (never seem to get as much as we plan done when we go there these days……..and for the rest of the year there are very few weekends free for us to be doing things so we will have to plan carefully….) 

Daddy’s ‘helpers’.

We did go to Bendigo for a day which was lovely – catching up with family, visiting a quilt exhibition and going to the Torchlight Procession – all part of the Bendigo Easter Festival.  The Torchlight Procession is for the emergency services – in particular the Fire Brigades.  This year’s was particularly special and it was a great recognition of the amazing work that all the emergency services did in the recent fires.

Speaking of which, more quilt tops rolling in for the Bushfires Quilting Bee. Fantastic girls!!

We are having our next get-together on Saturday 23rd May so if you would like to contribute in any way please let me know.  We are also toying with the idea of having a Quilt Hanging for people to come and see the quilts before they make their way to their new homes and raffling a quilt to raise money for quilting more quilts – what do you think?  I’m hearing from those in the know that people are now settling in their temporary accomodation and are ready to receive the quilts so we want it to all happen as soon as possible.  There is still lots of other great ways to help out over here.

Have been sent lots of lovely blocks and even quilt tops for the ‘Bee’ on Saturday………and lots of lovely ladies have promised to come along also BUT there is always room for more!!!  So please if you have some time to spare on Saturday consider popping in (just shoot me off an email so I know who to expect) and do some sewing, cutting, chatting or just have a cuppa.  It looks like we will be making at least 20………probably more like 30 quilts SO we are going to need lots of help with quilting!  Thanks to anyone who I’ve already spoken to about hand quilting or machine quilting – I’ll be in touch with you next week. 

Meanwhile here’s a small sample of the gorgeous blocks that lovely girls have sent to me…………

Thank you so much to Jenny and Kylie who have generously supplied some extra backing fabrics and to Spotlight and Victorian Textiles for their donations also. 

We also decided at UFO tonight to raffle one of the quilts to raise money to get lots more of them professionally quilted………so stay tuned for the details of the raffle quilt (think it will be the one I make from this tutorial in lime green, blue and white………probably!)

If you are planning on visiting the Australasian Quilt Convention come along to Somerset Patchwork’s stall because for the next four days that’s where you’ll find me!  Please come and say ‘Hi’.

Today I received this lovely quilt top from Cherrie to be used for our Quilting Bee – thanks so much!

Please let me know if you plan on coming along on the day or if you can help out in any way.