A new distant member

Debbie visited us from the US with her husband yesterday. She has enrolled as our latest distance member and lives quite near Marion. She does quilting at home already so will be able to teach us lots! Welcome Debbie.

More St George Hospital Craft Markets

Click on the picture to see a larger version so you can read it.

Donating Quilts

I've done a bit of research and have now found two ways to donate quilts in the St George area that will cut out the need for expensive postage of quilts to other charities.

The two options are:

Bezzina House - the St George Community Cancer Care Lodge. When this facility was built the quilters guild made quilts for all the beds. These have since worn with use and some need replacing or repairing. I have organised for us to visit this lodge at 1pm on the Sunday of our next quilting weekend to see what is there and discuss what is needed.

St George Hospital Fundraising Network - who raffle quilts, sell quilts at their craft stalls or distribute quilts to needy folk as appropriate. I have dates for the craft stalls till the end of 2009 and include them here in case you would like to see what is sold. You might even like to donate some other craft items to the stalls. The stalls are held in the Gray St entrance to St George Hospital (the main entrance) from 8.30-3pm on the following dates:

Tuesday	28-Jul
Thursday	6-Aug
Friday	28-Aug
Thursday	3-Sep
Tuesday	8-Sep
Friday	11-Sep
Saturday	12-Sep
Monday	14-Sep
Thursday	1-Oct
Friday	30-Oct
Thursday	5-Nov
Tuesday	10-Nov
Friday	13-Nov
Saturday	14-Nov
Monday	16-Nov
Thursday	3-Dec
Friday	18-Dec

Those two should give us plenty to work towards for the next few years.

Keeping Kitty Fed

At our last weekend it was decided that we really need to keep a kitty to cover our expenses of postage, batting and backing, and our sashing and border fabrics. Marion had donated money before she left and we've now run out. So Leonie has donated a 'kitty' money box (above). Here is what we agreed to:

1. When you join the Rainbow Connection Quilters we ask for a coin or note donation into the kitty.
2. When you attend one of our quilting weekends you can put a gold coin in the kitty.
3. When you join (or we run out) we also ask for a donation of 1 metre of fabric and a block design (wrapped so it can't be identified) for our Mystery Metre Quilts for charity. These are kept in our Lucky Dip basket (below) until needed. We still have 3 lucky dips which should keep us going until 2010.
4. If you can't afford anything that is OK and we certainly don't want any foreign currencies as these cost money to exchange. Overseas and other distance members can just donate their fabric and block design and pay for return postage of their blocks etc.
   

Please leave a comment if you would like to make a contribution to these rules.

June Quilting Weekend

As normal our June quilting weekend was begun with morning tea. We are using a beautiful new tablecloth made by Jane in Wolverhampton. It is most unusual. There is also the lovely tea set Surrey gave me for such occasions.
Here is a view of Leonie hard at work on the design wall. In the background are some of our other projects. The Brown Sampler Quilt is now professionally quilted and looks great. Just the binding left to go. Helen's Stars are complete. The other one is my project that I wanted to start in 1983. Some projects are slow. It is a bird's eye view of English countryside. Embellishments, woodlands and hedges are still to come.
Betty, Evelyn, Patricia and Elaine busy at work on Patricia's Cross quilt.
Linda enjoying another cuppa with Leonie.
Patricia's Cross blocks on the design wall. We are trying a quilt-as-you-go technique on this one to see how it works. The top row is all quilted as individual blocks then joined back and front with sashing which also has batting in it.
In all we had a great weekend but missed Robyn who was absent for the first time ever.