We are over 500!!

The last two weeks classes have been quite hot, but today is definitely the hottest. I think it was 37 degrees at Faulconbridge this afternoon. Just the right temperature for a special treat. More on that later.

So, what happened last Thursday? Well, it was our first week back after the break, so it was a good time to catch up with each other and find out how our Christmases and New Years were. Normally we start back on the first full week of the school term, which would be Thursday 7th February. Every year someone says 6 weeks is too long to not go to patchwork, so this year we decided to come back early for those people who were around. I am lucky that I have girls who love to come to patchwork, but it is harder for the other Mums with school aged children. It will be nice to catch up with everyone when school goes back.

We had 36 quilts arrive last week, including 11 beautiful quilts from The Waverley Quilters; and one coverlet; and 19 crocheted blankets from Beverley Carter. So that brings the total to 463 quilts, lots of knitted and crochet blankets.

This week I surprised the Wednesday night ladies with an encouraging treat on behalf of Bobby McCarthy's donation. I bought lots of different ice cream and my girls took orders and distributed them. We wrote all the varieties on the whiteboard and it read:

Bobby McCarthy's

Magnificent Munchies Menu

DRUMSTICKS

• Cherry Sunset
• Cookies and Cream
• Boysenberry Swirl
• Classic Vanilla
• Honey Macadamia
• Caramel Swirl
• Super Choc
• Mint
• Toffee Tanlines (I love the name of this one!)
• Banana Lounge

PINE LIME SPLICE

PEANUT BUTTER "MAGNUM" (Coles variety)

MINT MINI "MAGNUMS" (Coles variety)

Of course, the Thursday ladies got one, too. There are still some leftover for next week - yum!

This week we received 52 quilts with 37 of those from the Sew Crazy Quilters in Queensland. If you are on the Facebook page, you will see Mel and I at Winmalee Rural Fire Service with a beautifully decorated fire truck. Ken, Mel's lovely husband, wrote a lovely piece on the Brigades page about the quilts, and the quilt appeal.

So, the total count today is 515.

That is amazing.

In the next week or so I will be able to share more details on the process of distributing the quilts, but for the time being here are some statistics for you.

Dates of Viewing and Distribution: Friday 21st & Saturday 22nd March 2014

Days left until above date: 64

Linksview Road Fire: Thursday 17th October 2013

Days since above date: 91 (13 weeks today)

Wednesday night classes commenced: 6th November 2013

Classes held since then: 9

Classes left until Distribution: 9

Thursday Quilt Appeal classes held so far: 9

Classes left until Distribution: 9

Quilts received to date: 515


We are half way to our Distribution date. Of course, the last Wednesday and Thursday will be devoted to setting up the quilts, so they don't really count. More information on the distribution will follow in the next week or so, as well as a description of what happens each week so you know the work that goes into it each week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tracey.

Hexagon Challenge Reveal

If you came to this blog via my personal blog (which has not had much of my attention lately) you may have seen the Hexagon Challenge. Each year after our annual Quilt Show I set a quilty challenge for the ladies which is due on the Thursday before our next quilt show. The challenge for 2013 was to create a hexagon quilt.

The details can be found here (just scroll down). Basically, it could include one hexagon or a thousand, it could be hexagon shaped, or have no hexagons in the patchwork but hexagons in the quilting. There is a myriad of ways to approach this, and the fun part of the challenge is that we are not allowed to tell anyone else what we are making. It is a delicious, excruciating secret (for a quilter, that is). We all see them for the first time two days before they go in the show.

Seeing as our Quilt Show was cancelled due to the Quilt Appeal needing all our time and effort, we decided that we would still have our in-house show on the last class of 2013. These quilts are not part of the Bushfire Quilt Appeal and will be included in our next regular quilt show, so you will be able to see them up close. Would you like to see what the ladies came up with...

This is Shirley's quilted banner. She loves researching her family heritage and this represents the family tree.
The hexagon is in the middle with a "G" appliqued on for Greenaway. Great job for a relatively new quilter!

Close up of the family crest.

This is Judith Chidgey's quilt. The stars are made from star prints.
Do you see the colourful stars, or the white hexagons?

This is one of Chris Casley's hexagon quilts (yes, she made two!).
A very intricate design, yet she says it was very easy to make.

And this is the second quilt by Chris Casley.
It is an Anne Sommerlad pattern called "Hanazono"

Close up of the flowers, all made from hexagons.

Even the label is a hexagon!

And this is Barbara's quilt. Have you seen it before? That's right, Barbara and Chris picked
the same pattern, without knowing! Barbara added borders to hers to make it larger.

And like Chris, Barbara made a second quilt, too.
This beautiful quilt is in soft pastels.

And the label is a hexagon!

And this is Maree's monster quilt. It is huge! It is English paper pieced by hand,
and commercially machine quilted. This is Maree's favourite colour palette.

A close up of some of the fussy cut blocks.

This is Jan K's quilt, which is a quilted and framed artwork.
The basket and the flowers are all made from hexagons.

This is Jan P's quilt. A traditional Grandmother's Flower Garden block in soft pastels.
The blocks were English paper pieced and the quilt was commercially quilted.

A close up of the lovely quilting.

This is Edna's quilt. What a masterpiece! It is a very large quilt featuring English paper pieced
Grandmother's Flower Garden blocks. Each block is fussy cut from one fabric, and the butterflies
are appliqued on. Chris Casley machined quilted it, although we know Edna would have loved to have quilted
it herself. Edna is an inspiration to many, to be able to achieve a quilt like this even with her health concerns.

A close up of a flower.

This is Monika's quilt. It's made with striking prints against a black background.
Do you see the hexagons, or the stars?

And another label with hexagons!

This is Mary's quilt. Mary is a fairly new quilter, she had just started attending our classes
when the fires came, and with all the quilt making we have been doing, she has learned
real fast! The whole quilt, even the black background, has been English paper pieced.

And this is my effort. It can't be called a quilt because is it only the centre of a top
at this stage. I just ran out of hours in each day to get it finished, but I will have it
finished by our next quilt show. I promise! It has English paper pieced hexagons in a ring
with a Suffolk Puff in the centre as the feature block, using Civil War and reproduction fabrics.

So there you have it! The 2013 Hexagon Challenge Quilts. Did you notice how many quilts used black? In my mind I never thought of using black with hexagons, and it really surprised me when I saw six of the quilts with black. That is the amazing part of secret challenges - how differently we all think and see something in our head when we are given a topic.

In the next few weeks I will be putting up the Challenge for this year on my personal blog. Stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by,

Tracey

The Christmas Day total finally revealed!

Happy New Year everyone! It seems like an age since I last posted. Ryan had some time off work between Christmas and New Years so we took the opportunity to have some family time. We don't see each other much during December, so we like to have a catch up in January. Still, I feel a bit bad that I haven't let you all know the totals. So this is what has happened since my last post almost a month ago:

We were at 354 quilts on 13th December. Our last class was Thursday 19th December and we had a pretty relaxed time with most of the ladies doing the Christmas projects we had planned before the fires came. However, a lot of quilts had arrived during the week with quilters trying to get them in before Christmas. It was heaps of fun opening all the parcels and photographing the quilts! A super fun box to open came from Blanketlovez. They sent an amazing 31 quilts! I would highly recommend checking out their webpage. What a fantastic job they are doing.

And to add to a very exciting day, I received a lovely bunch of flowers and a card from my ladies (which made me all misty). But the thing that really made me cry was a beautiful card addressed to "Tracey Greenaway and her Quilting Ladies" in a parcel of quilts from Bobby McCarthy. If you have been following the blog you would have seen that Bobby and her group have already sent down lots of quilts and supplies, so I was surprised to see more from Bobby. In the card was a cheque for me to use for the encouragement of my ladies, not to buy more wadding or fabric for the appeal, but spend on something just for the ladies to encourage and uplift them, to give them a treat as they work so hard. What a gift, so thoughtful, generous and caring. Especially coming from someone who has already been so generous to the appeal. Of course, I couldn't read the card out to the group because I was so teary, but Chris stepped in and read it out, and the look of happy surprise around the room was priceless. In fact, I have a big lump in my throat as I write this down even now. I haven't spent the money yet, but when I do (and it will be soon), I'll show you what we did.

By the end of the day we were up to 417 quilts with 6 days until Christmas. That means Edna, Di, Pat, Dianne and Shirley were out of the guessing competition.

I made these Christmas Wreaths for the class with a Choc Ripple biscuit base and peppermint icing swirl.
Super easy to make. I used half butter and half Copha in the icing so it would hold it's shape in the heat.

On Christmas Day we went to the service at The Salvation Army and there was one more box of quilts from The Star Sea Quilters in Cleveland, Queensland. It was a busy day and we didn't get to count them until later.

Christmas morning excitement

Eddie was ecstatic about his new tennis balls. He destroyed 2 in 15 minutes.
This was his face when we removed the remaining balls for later.

Bessie's Christmas outfit

Eating breakfast with the gingerbread houses ready for decorating at lunch with the family.

Merry Christmas from us! (photobombed by Eddie)

And now that I have kept you in suspense, I can tell you that the last box of quilts brought us to the grand total of 427 quilts on Christmas Day!!! Can you believe it?!?!?!?

That means Jan P, Sue, Margaret M and Beverley were out of the guessing competition and the winner is Robyn B.

Well done everyone! Can't wait to see how many we will have by March 2014!

Thanks for stopping by,

Tracey.

Guessing Competition: How many quilts by Christmas Day?

We have started a friendly competition about how many fully finished quilts we will have by Christmas Day. There is no prize as such except the recognition that you won! Here are the guesses so far. If you would like to add your favourite number, leave it in the Comments box below.

380	Edna
390	Di
397	Pat
401	Dianne
416	Shirley
420	Jan P
420	Sue
421	Margaret M
422	Beverley
423	Robyn B
433	Barbara
436	Eva
450	Bronwyn
452	Monika
457	Francois
463	Francis
465	Mary
475	Maree
482	Irene
496	Tracey
499	Judith
500	Hannah
500	Margaret H
500	Rebecca
504	Chris
512	Ryan
523	Kathy
530	Roslyn

12 days until Christmas, and what is our total?

This week we collected 55 quilts, and 2 crochet blankets. So our total number of quilts (knitted and crochet blankets not counted) is 354! That is an amazing number, and we have had some amazing quilts with amazing stories donated this week.

Today in class our focus was to get as many tops that were already matched with backing onto the pinning tables and get them pinned ready for quilting. And we also tried to get as many tops matched with appropriate backing as we could. My hat comes off to Irene, Chris, Mary, Margaret, Monika, Judith, Sue, Francois and Beverley for their tireless work today in those two roles. These ladies have done such a good job in getting quilts to the quilting stage, particularly Irene, Chris, Mary, Margaret, Monika and Judith who come to the Wednesday night class as well, that we have now used every decent pin we have. We had one donation of 2000 pins alone (thanks Maree!), so you can imagine how many pins we had altogether at one time. Now they are all holding quilts together in one or the other of the ladies houses while she gets it quilted over the Christmas break. What a fantastic bunch of people to work with!

In fact, it is such a great group, and we have so much fun, that my 10 year old is desperate to come each week. My girls have had to come to the Wednesday class a few times because Ryan is held up getting home from work, and it is always the highlight of my eldest's week. Last night Ryan wasn't going to make it home until very late, and she was thrilled. She was on a mission. She was here, there and everywhere, making cups of tea, unpacking things, sorting, washing up. She just loved being a part of it. She reminds me so much of my lovely Mum when she is all fired up like that. My little tiny Mum is like the Energizer Bunny, and Hannah is just the same. She keeps telling me how excited she is about the school holidays because she is going to make a quilt to give away. It's going to be a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to it, but today I saw something she did that made my throat get a hard lump in it, and I think the quilt making will be even more special.

Today after class, some of the ladies went down to Penrith RSL for our Christmas break up lunch. We had left the hall in a bit of a mess because we were coming back later to clean it up. It turned out that we wouldn't have time to do it before the girls came out of school, so we went out and picked up the girls and then back up to Faulconbridge to pack away and load the quilts into my car. The last thing I put away was the whiteboard, and that is where I found she had written a message on the back on Wednesday night.

Early in the week I had the pleasure of meeting two quilters and their husbands who had travelled to Winmalee to drop off quilts. Anne Perry of The Avalon Quilters came with lots of goodies like fabric, patterns, quilts, quilt tops and backing, and the most fabulous bag of threads which drew a lots of ohhs and ahhs from my ladies. They donated some simply stunning quilts. Many are fully hand quilted. The hundreds of hours invested into each quilt is hard to imagine. If you have a look at the Photo Gallery you will see a couple of The Avalon Quilts quilts which I am sure have been in patchwork magazines before. The Avalon Quilters also sent a cheque for $100 to help us finish some of the tops that have been donated. The also brought a lovely card from the Caroline Bay Quilters with a cheque for $300! How very generous! It will be going towards backings and quilting. Now, Anne didn't really mention the financial donation as such and after they left I was walking down the hallway opening the cards and I stopped dead still with my mouth wide open (attractive, I know!) when I saw the amount. I wished I could have called her back and gave her a hug. Thank you!

And the other couple that came to my door win the prize for the most kilometres travelled to deliver quilts. They came from Toowoomba!! Yes, in QUEENSLAND!! Now there is a town that has had its own natural disaster in recent years, and now they are sending down quilts to us. I was very touched. They have made some beautiful quilts with beautiful quilting. I wish the Toowoomba ladies could have seen the look on my ladies faces when I told them that the quilts were personally delivered from 900km away. Priceless! I have since heard that there is a good patchwork shop in Toowoomba and there was some suggestions of a roadtrip!

Also this week I received a letter from Mrs Laverance, a lovely, Godly woman who, with her husband, were Commanding Officers at Springwood Salvation Army when I was a teenager. In fact, she enrolled me as a Senior Soldier. The group she belongs to is called "The Tuesday Ladies", and they have very generously raised $100 to go to our Quilt Appeal. This is also going to buy backing and to get some quilting done of some of the large quilt tops we have received. Thank you!

What a week we have had! Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned for tomorrow's launch of the guessing competition!

We're teetering on the brink of 300 quilts today!

We're on the brink of 300 quilts!

 

Can you believe that last week I was wondering if it would be achievable to reach 300 quilts by Christmas, and as of yesterday, just one week later, we are only one quilt short of the goal. 299 quilts! What a massive achievement!

We have had some stunning quilts donated from all over the country, but this week most have come from our state. We have also had some lovely donations of money to buy backings, thread for sewing an quilting and a whole roll wadding! These go a long way towards finishing the many quilt tops we have been given.

 

At this stage, we have enough quilt tops to go on with for quite some time. If you were thinking of send us a top only, please know that it may not get finished in time for the appeal. We will try our very best, but there are a lot of tops to get through now. Preference will be given to tops that come with backing and binding, because they are quicker, and cost us less, to finish.

Don't forget to check out the updated Thank You page, and also the gallery. Here are a few of my favourites from this week:

Next week, I will be putting up another super simple pattern. I just have to quilt the 5 quilts I have here first, and cut out the tops ready for next weeks class, and piece the backing for a large top I have, and get my Hexagon Challenge finished (actually, that is started and finished). OK, so maybe I will put the post up anyway, because I think my chances of getting everything done are pretty minimal!

Yesterday on the Facebook page I asked for some estimates of the number of quilts by Christmas and we have 352, 400 and 500. I think I will go with 427. It's just a number I like. I don't know if it is realistic, but we will find out. Anyone else care to have a guess?

Thanks for stopping by!

Tracey.

Over 200 quilts and counting! Christmas has come early!

This week marks the 200th quilt received. Actually, we are now up to 227! We could say that Christmas has come early seeing as we have reached our Christmas deadline almost a month early. How exciting is that?!?!? It is a very exciting end to an emotionally charged week.

On Friday I volunteered at The Salvation Army's Relief Centre in Springwood, helping people get the items they need and having a friendly chat. It seemed to me that people were going through another stage of grieving as they were finally settling into rentals. Families with school-age children have been very focussed on getting accommodation close to the schools. For a lot of parents, the last few weeks have been all about getting “the rental”, of having a place where they can get back into a routine, have their own family space, and help the kids feel settled. But it seemed a common theme on Friday that once people were in their rental property, with the goal of finding it completed, the reality of what is happening to them starts to sink in and they’re asking themselves “what do I do now?” I simply cannot imagine how stressful that would be.

On Saturday a bunch of lovely volunteers and myself packed up the goods from the Relief Centre in the Baptist Church in Springwood and set it up in the barn at Springwood Salvation Army. It was a lot of physical work, on a hot day, but the rewards of seeing it set up made it worthwhile. It is set up on supermarket style shelves so people can walk down a few short aisles and see the toothpaste all set out, and shampoo, and conditioner, toilet paper, and linen, etc. The boys from Hadleigh Lodge have worked so hard at setting up the food and clothing sections. It really does look neat.

On Sunday I had the privilege of serving tea and coffee with The Salvation Army Emergency Services at the Community Meeting for fire affected residents at Winmalee High School. I caught up with friends I went to primary school and high school with, and friends I have made in the years since then, and friends I have made just since the bushfires. Some of the people I met for the first time at the Disaster Recovery Centre when they first came in to register, and then at the Relief Centre in the following days, and it was so good to see them again and find out how they are doing.

During the week I spent a lot of time on the phone with quilters who had quilts, fabric and donations to make towards the quilt appeal. It is so exciting to speak with quilters from all over the country! Have a look at our Thank You page at all the lovely generous quilters out there.

This week’s classes have seen us churning out quilts at a great rate of knots. Our group of ladies have become a well-oiled machine of quilting achievenators (as I like to call them). They just seem to know what skills that they are good at and everyone gets in and gets the job done. It is a lot like a factory line, but with excellent conditions, coffee and cake. It is a joy to see. This sense of a cause, and a deadline, is great for me because I am sure I could write a doctorate on stuffing around. If left to my own devices, I can fiddle with the colours and layout and quilting ideas FOREVER, instead of just getting it done. I love all the possibilities. This quilt appeal has put a stop to my chopping and changing and I’m getting things done and I love it. In fact, if you look at the first photo in the post about 100 quilts (one week ago) you will see a beautiful quilt top in blue being pinned. Well, it is in the Photo Gallery today!

I wonder what our new goal for Christmas should be. Is it too ambitious to say 300 by Christmas? We'll see.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tracey.