IN ABSENTIA MIRANDA - made in Australia

In the 14 months that my sister and I were caring for my mother in
Australia , I felt I needed to quilt and make bags at night to give me some
tenuous link with my life before caring for my terminally ill Mum who eventually
passed away from cancer.

This quilt is called "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" ......where I feel she is now.

I worked on 3 quilts (One was lost in all the moves and the other is still in
progress)- one was finished in time for my mother to enjoy using it right ujp to her last day. It was a source of interest at the hospice where nurses and strangers would come in to look at it and ask her about it, and she would then chat with them.

It was a healing quilt for me after Mum passed away I would wrap myself
in it when I wanted to be close to her. Now I've gifted it to my daughter.

It's a three generational quilt already. In fact all three of us had a hand in making it. Mya and mum snipped off the endless numbers of cotton threads. If you've made one of these quilts that is chenille blocks , you'll know what iI mean about the sewing threads! They're still popping up no matter how many washes it gets.

After making lots of 'THANK YOU BAGS" for friends who were being
exceptionally supportive, I started making bags for Charity. They sold like hot
cakes and the money went to Eastern Palliative Care and to Caritas Cristi; the
two organisations that helped both my mother and my sister and I through this
tough time.


The organisations were most grateful. I had hoped to start a quilt for
each cancer patient in the hospice, but due to Australian Laws, they were not
able to accept quilts: The laundry contractors could only wash their own plain
white hospital covers!! I was glad to have found a way to support the charities
without causing "OHS" problems.


In all, I made 23 bags for charities (my sister cleaned up after me), ran free workshops where the participants then donated the bags to the charities and I lost count of how many "thank you" bags I made.

As all of you know, a lot of love and thought goes into something hand made for someone special - especially if it is a thank you gift. It gave me great joy to give the bags away. Thus I have none for show and tell in Singapore - so I've put them here in the blog to share this special time with you. .

PAST MEMBER NEWS

Betty just e-mailed me with the wonderful news:

"I got a call from Courtney's dad this morning saying that Courtney had a
boy a few days ago, he came a month early. So the baby shower is off for
tomorrow until she some other time soon. All are well and maybe I will get
to see Courtney at the Wesley hospital which is where I volunteer every
Tuesday. The baby has to stay in the maternity ward for a few more weeks
but Courtney is going home either tomorrow or Monday, but naturally she will
visit every day."

I just received more news. Hamish is doing well - has reached his birthweight but is still in hospital.

I hope we'll get some photos soon, and I'll post them for the clucky ones amongst us.

By the way here is Betty's banner.....

Sandra will be sending photos of her bags soon.

QUILT SHOW IN BIRMINGHAM

Here are some photos that Janice has sent from the Birmingham Quilt show. She'll add some info on them when she comes back.

Birmingham Festival of Quilts August 2008

After the fantastic show in Tokyo last year, I really didn’t know what to expect despite knowing that this is one of the largest shows in Europe. Well I wasn’t disappointed! Having persuaded a friend to join me who is a lapsed quilter who learnt in the States, I was relieved to see that European quilting is alive and thriving and is not restricted to the old fashioned patchwork I remembered.

These are a few trends I noticed at the festival – Sue went the day after me and it will be interesting to see what she thought. There were a lot of quilts incorporating printed pictures or screen printed images and painting on fabrics used for all or for part of the quilt. Some of the most beautiful quilts were single coloured fabric eg cream with coloured quilting forming the picture and patterns. There were some stunning long armed machine quilting done with coloured threads which I could easily live with (so long as someone else could make them!) Hangings were in abundance and often in 3 pieces. Some pieces incorporated felting and the work of Jacqueline Heinz was just amazing and she even wore some felted and quilted pieces she had made as well as showing the best hangings in the show as far as I was concerned. Unfortunately she doesn’t have a website!! Ricky Tims was there with a variety of his quilts and of course his cowboy hat. Kaffe Fasset was also there but I missed him as there was so much to see.

There were so many workshops to do but as I only had one day I thought I would just look around and of course I didn’t get to see everything by closing time – there isn’t enough time and after a 5am start from home, although the mind was willing, the body was done for at 5pm! The shopping looked good and I found a couple of different things of course but it was a bit short on old Japanese fabric so Betty, Sandra and Miranda would have been disappointed !! Generally I had a great day and my friend has been inspired to tackle her UFOs and try some new ideas so what more could I ask for? Better try and work next year’s holidays around the festival.

Janice

PAST MEMBER WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

QUILT SHOW PHOTOS FROM AUSTRALIA COURTESY OF ex member BETTY KERR

3 MEMBERS ARE IN QUEENSLAND

Courtney is having her baby shower in Queensland this weekend. Invited to the shower is Betty Kerr also a recent past member of ANZA Quilters. Betty won the Singapore Quilt challenge last year with her "Out of the Blue...Steve Irwin Died" quilt where she pieced several thousand 1 inch squares in colour wash of Steve Irwin and a crocodile. Since leaving Singapore Betty has featured Steve in a Quilting magazine in Australia and several State Quilt shows. She is currently working on a banner for a family reunion. Knowing Betty's skills it'll be something to behold. She's promised to send us a photo of the finished product. She has also sent us some phoots from the quilt shows in Brisbane and Melbourne.

Also in Queensland is Lyn McClellan who will be remembered by long term members. Lyn and I are friends (we lived in the same apartment block in Indonesia) where I taught quilting and Lyn helped tremendously to introduce her quilting skills and Knowledge to a group of expats and locals in Jakarta. Lyn is now in Queensland and preparing to head off with her husband on a huge sailing trip to Phuket and Ambon- we're trying to get her to come to Singapore and visit her old quilting group.

AUGUST REFRESHMENTS RECIPES AS REQUESTED

Alison's Crispy Noodle Salad
------------------------------

1 medium red capsicum (200g)
100g baby curly endive (or
lettuce/spinach/radicchio etc)
100g crispy fried noodles
1 small red
onion (100g) sliced thinly
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped fresh mint
1
tablespoon coarsely chopped fresh coriander

dressing:
1/3 cup
(80ml) peanut oil
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1
tablespoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 clove garlic,
crushed

Cut capsicum in half lengthways. Remove & discard seeds and membrane; slice
thinly. Trim endive & discard hard ends of leaves.
Combine capsicum & endive with noodles, onion, mint & coriander in large bowl.
Add dressing, toss to combine.

Dressing: combine ingredients in glass screw top jar and shake well.

*Note: add noodles & dressing at the last minute, as noodles will go soggy if
left for long