Throwback Thursday Victorian Bushfire Quilts

Quilts for People Affected by the Victorian Bushfires

In on Saturday February 7th 2009 devastating bushfires swept through parts of Victoria, Australia. The fires caused 173 deaths, 120 of them caused by a single firestorm, the fires destroyed over 2,030 houses and more than 3,500 structures and damaged thousands more. The fires affected 78 townships and displaced an estimated 7,560 people.

The patchwork group I belong to decided to make quilts to be given to some of the survivors and those affected by the fires.  I had heard via another group that I am involved with, the Australian Breastfeeding Association of Australia, that one of the Victorian counsellors had lost her house in the fire. She and her husband and their 4 children were all ok but the house and all the contents were gone. I decided that I would like to make quilts for this particular family, or at least the children. My daughter Fangirl assisted me by cross stitching the children's names to go on the quilts.

For Amelia's quilt I chose to use a mermaid panel I had and complimented it with a range of seaside and ocean squares, sashed in purples and pinks

For Zoe's quilt I chose eyespy fabrics along an insects and butterflies

The youngest two children in the family were twin boys Thomas and Christopher. I did ABC eyespy for both boys incorporating their name squares as part of the ABC's

I put the quilts together and a friend of mine who has a long arm quilted them. In all our group made over 70 quilts. Our community contributed with donated fabric and money for wadding. Our three local fabric shops all made generous donations as well and one of the local mining companies donated a whole roll of batting. One of our local members was able to drive the quilts down to Victoria where they were given to a local organisation down there to distribute. The quilts that I made were sent separately as the family lived elsewhere. I never heard back from the family. I hope they arrived safely

I'm linking up with  Quilting Jenny's Throwback Thursday

Wrap up of my April Goals and Setting my May ones

Reviewing my April Goals.

On April 1st I set myself some Goals for April. These were

1. Finish Sombrero Stars (quilt 3 of SOMB quilts... Shirt Off My Back)
2. Finish Not so Sombre Stars
3. Make an Easter Wall Hanging
4. Empty Scrap basket - cut into useful units and put away
5. Look for and hopefully find Tea Shop Applique Quilt pattern 

6. Cover theatre couches in black fabric

7. Make Curtains for Spare Room.

Now that it is the end of April how did I go?

1 Sombrero Stars. All finished = quilted and bound. Not labelled yet as I am still deciding who to give it to but its done.

2, Not So Sombre Stars. The top is done (as I detailed yesterday) Its had a name change as I am giving it to a friend. Not So Sombre Stars for Derek. Backing not made yet... waiting for the signature blocks to roll in

3 Make an Easter Hanging. Didn't happen. Didn't even look like happening. Ho hum.

4 Empty Scrap basket. This got done... twice. It was totally empty this morning. However since I am in the process of completely rearranging my sewing room which means going through all my drawers with fabric in them... the scrap basket is brimming once again with all the fabric scraps I found hidden in various nooks and crannies

5 Look for and hopefully find Tea Shop Applique quilt pattern. No luck finding the pattern I bought but having tracked it down on line I am determined that I will order it and go from there.

                                                         

6 Cover theatre couches in black fabric. Done. My daughter, Fangirl, and I worked on them a couple of weeks ago and both the couches that she needs to use in the production she is directing (and I am prompting in) have been covered in black fabric. I don't have a photo of the couches but here is the poster for the play

                                                           

7 Make Curtains for spare room. Didn't happen. I did get the fabric out today so maybe I will get inspired to do it when I tidy the sewing area up. They won't take long to make and when I do its an easy 4.5m usage to be able to count since I added it in when I bought it. Just have to do it.

May Goals

1. Finish Not So Sombre Stars for Derek

2. Tidy my sewing room (photo of the current mess will be posted here soon)

3 Make the Curtains for the Spare Room

4 Empty Scrap basket again

5 Order Tea Room Pattern (my Mothers' Day gift to myself perhaps)

6 Do at least one of my Craftsy Classes.

WIP Wednesday

I haven't done any sewing this week. Nil Nixo Nothing.

I cut some 6.5" squares out of white and cream recycled fabric to use as signature squares for the backing of Not So Sombre Stars for Derek (note new name) These are for family and friends to sign and write messages on for our friend recently diagnosed with Non Hodgkins Lymphoma and currently undergoing chemotherapy in Brisbane. So far I have 4 signature pieces back. Will have to distribute some more and start naggin people to complete them and hand them in. I am wondering what to do with them. Was thinking of just doing signature blocks interspersed with other 6.5" squares of coloured fabric but have also contemplated making the blocks into more stars for the back of the quilt. It is going to depend largely on how many of the signature squares I get back.

I went up to patchwork today but didn't stay long... I came home and have been working on cutting up my scraps into usable sizes. I am planning on going through all my cupboards and having a good tidy up and sort out. I have decided to reorganise my cupboards completely so we will see how that goes. I am going to write out a new list of UFOs and projects that I have collected fabric for and see how that works out. I may even publish the list on my blog to keep it in front of me (and my readers) and see how that helps me

Should go and take some before photos so I can bask in the glory of the after shots even more. Or realise that yet again I just rearranged the deck chairs of a sinking ship. :)

Its been a week since Annie, our 9 year old dog died. Have felt her loss more keenly on a few occassions. Such as when we got home from our weekend away and there were only 2 happy yappy waggy dogs to greet us on our return. And when we walked the dogs last night and after we had dropped our day care dog home we only had one dog to walk back to our place. And this morning when only one dog came rushing out to greet me and get super excited when he realised that there was a walk on offer. 

Here's a token Annie photo since I don't have any pictures of quilts to show you today

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly pieced

Monday Meaderings

Not sure why I make all my blog posts about the day they are written and then have to have alliteration going. Never mind - perhaps I am just a bit weird like that

Have been away since last Thursday on a very busy weekend. My husband was lay director of the men's walk for Emmaus in our area this year. Its been lots of preparation for him and I've just hovered in the background supporting him up to this weekend. I went on the Dining Room team, looking after the housekeeping support stuff for the weekend. Fangirl and Boyo came along too to help out. What is Emmaus? I took this explanation straight from the web page of the Walk to Emmaus Australia webpage.

The Walk to Emmaus is a spiritual renewal program intended to strengthen the local church through the development of Christian disciples and leaders. The program's approach seriously considers the model of Christ's servanthood and encourages Christ's disciples to act in ways appropriate to being "a servant of all."

The Walk to Emmaus experience begins with a 72-hour short course in Christianity, comprised of fifteen talks by lay and clergy on the themes of God's grace, disciplines of Christian discipleship, and what it means to be the church. The course is wrapped in prayer and meditation, special times of worship and daily celebration of Holy Communion. The "Emmaus community," made up of those who have attended an Emmaus weekend, support the 72-hour experience with a prayer vigil, by preparing and serving meals, and other acts of love and self-giving. The Emmaus Walk typically begins Thursday evening and concludes Sunday evening. Men and women attend separate weekends.

It was a big weekend with late nights and long days but it was also lots of fun and fellowship for those of us on the dining room team. Its not all hard work.

I haven't done any quilting since last Wednesday night. I didn't even organise myself any hand work to do whilst away. I finished up the embroidery I was doing. I played on my computer instead and wrote several blog posts and read other blogs that I had to catch up on as well.

Since I got home I finally started to work on organising a school reunion for my 40 years since Fourth Form/Year 10. I had been thinking about doing it since last year but till this weekend was over I couldn't think about it. Now I have probably left it too late for this year but we can start the ball rolling for either next year or the year after that when it will be 40 years since our final year of schooling. Lots of students didn't complete year 12 but I doubt that we will be elitist and will include anyone who was in our year through out our high school time (and maybe even primary school too if we find anyone!) I tend to be a bit... if you want to come and celebrate with us, come along.

I haven't even got any photos to include. Am going to have to get Fangirl along to help me pretty up my page so that it still looks visually appealing even without photos. I just worked out how to change the text colour. That might have to do for today

sunday stash report - nothing to report

I haven't had a finish this week. The quilt top for Not So Sombre Stars is done but the back isn't. Its going to be a scrappy one incorporating signature squares so it will be a while. I wasn't going to let people take their fabric squares home... was going to make them do them there on the spot with me but I'm a softie. Handed people squares and they were all... oh I don't know what to write. I'll have to think about it... um ahh ...ohhh so I weakened and let them keep their squares and I will have to chase them up and get them back. So it is going to take me a while to get that done. 

Haven't been into a fabric shop this week so I haven't had any additions either so that is good. 

My stats therefore remain the same as last week

Year to Date Used       60.47
Year to Date added      38.31
Net Used                     22.16m

Linking up with Stash report on Patchwork Times

Saturday Thoughts - My quilty word

For 2014 the word I chose for the year was Renew. Not sure why I chose that. - wasn't writing my blog at the time so don't have a post on the subject  - so no longwinded self indulgent naval gazing post to go back to in order to check it out. Yeah I know it was only a little under 4 months ago... but still I got old lady brain going here.(You've seen the grey hair I got going now)

So far for me it has largely centred around using fabric that I have in my stash that has a previous use - fabric that wasn't designed to be part of a quilt. This has been the theme behind 3 of the quilts 2 have finished this year and 2 more that I have as works in progress.

In January I completed making a crazy patch tie quilt that I was making for my cousin Syd who turned 70 last month. I gave him the quilt at a family reunion in January (to see the blog post about it visit here) I got a real kick out of making the quilt. I have a pile of ties left - ones that didn't fit into the blue and red spectrum I chose for Syd's quilt. I'll make another one day

I have also been working on my SOMB quilts. Shirt Off My Back quilts that I am making using 2nd hand men's shirts for a challenge that I am involved with. To find out more about this challenge just search my blog for SOMB. Added to the challenge of using the fabric from the shirts we had swapped i added the challenge of only using recycled fabric in the whole of the quilt and with the 3rd quilt in the series completed  I have one more quilt in the series to complete. The top has been made completely using recycled fabric and I am still working on the backing. Its going to be a gift for a friend currently undergoing chemo. I have cut 6.5" squares out of light coloured fabrics- mostly old sheets but some calico whose origins I am not sure of. Friends and family have been signing these squares with messages of love and support. Still thinking about how I will incorporate these into the backing... depends how many I get back. I may just alternate them with coloured squares or then again... might make them into blocks. Will see.

I also want to renew my sewing area. I want to get it all sorted out and freshened up, go through my projects and fabric and decide what I am going to do. I have already started on this by going through my fabric and sorting out the little bits and cutting and sorting these according to size. Larger pieces of fabric have already been sorted by colour. It will be good to have it all tidied up and renewed. Apart from anything else it will bring to mind what things I have - what gadgets, fabric, patterns etc which in turn will help generate creativity and help me to work out what projects I want to work on next.

How are you going with your quilty word for 2014?

Fitness Friday

I think this week it should be not so much fitness Friday. Its all been messed up with Annie dying, Fixit Guy home on holidays, Boyo home on holidays, Easter, extra church services, play rehearsal etc etc. I haven't run at all this week. I have managed a walk most days and by sheer determination ie running on the spot at 11.30PM I have made my 10 000 steps each day but that has been just about it. Oh well no... on Easter Sunday I made myself do 16 000 steps to make up for all the extra chocolate I ate and I have tried to do a few extra each day as well cause I have been finishing off the Easter treats. The Mother's Day Classic is only 3 weeks away now so I am going to have to make some time to run a bit more to be sure I can make the 7 kms still.

I am away from home this weekend, involved in a Christian retreat called Walk to Emmaus. I am not sure I will get much time to actually walk ... might be doing some running on the spot in my bedroom at night. I am going to be sharing with Fangirl so hope she is up to the challenge of me being crazy in the room at night.

Weightwise... not a lot of joy. I managed to keep the damage from Easter down a bit for a start but certainly haven't lost anything... might have put a bit on but still under 90kgs so feel ok about that. Half way to my goal... need to lose that extra 9kgs that is loving me too much.

I was looking through some old photos of me this week. Looking at the photos on my phone. I sure did pack the weight on there for a bit and think that I am looking a whole lot better. Will try to find some comparison shots for you when I am able to access my photos more easily