Other hand made beauties

 It looks like a carrot, but it’s also a whimsical needle book, beautifully cross-stitched by Janice, using Stacy Nash’s ‘Velvet Carrot’ design:

Hilary recently took miniature basket making classes, one with weaver Kirrily Jordan at her Galston studio, the other at the Australian Design Centre:

‘Enchanted Garden’ block challenge: the finished quilts

We undertook this block challenge, devised and managed by Roslyn during 2019 in preparation for our planned 2020 Quilt Show. Of course that show was cancelled, and we held our next show in 2024, when the blocks were exhibited. 

Then Roslyn and Val undertook to make three quilts from the entries during 2025. The two lager nine block quilts were machine quilted in the ditch and sashings by Susan Mack and Elaine W, and the blocks were hand quilted by Susan Mack (who won the challenge), Jeni, Jill and Miriam. The slightly smaller 7 block quilt was machine quilted by Laura.

The three finished quilt will be exhibited st out next quilt show in May this year, as well as a new challenge, devised by Jeni.

 

Summer sewing

We started off our quilting year this week with a good round of sharing community quilts finished over the summer break. Photographed indoors because it was pelting with rain, after a four day heat wave!

Elaine cut diamonds from mostly French General fabrics.
It was easier than she expected to sew the many bias
cut seams, and she is contemplating doing it again!

Sue C used @sewmiriam’s Superstar design to make big
blocks using a generous fabric donation to the community stash.

The background fabric is a very useful small scale star print.

Quilted by Laura.

Julie makes many hexagons, and they are not all used up yet.

Quilted by Laura.

Susan K made these blocks using her Quilt Builder Card Deck, that helps with multiple sizes and placement of different tones.


Quilted by Jane @quiltingfinesse.

February events

Gallery 76

76 Queen Street, Concord West 2138

Open 9 - 4 Monday - Friday; 10 - 2 Saturday and Sunday

Closed public holidays

Timeless Textiles Gallery

90 Hunter Street Newcastle 2300

Open 10 - 4 Wednesday - Saturday; 10 - 2 Sunday

Closed public holidays

Fabric and Yarn Destash Market
Sydney Portugal Community Club
100 Marrickville Rd, Marrickville 2204

Sydneydestashmarket@gmail.com
Instagram: @sydneydestashmarket

Timeless Textiles Gallery
90 Hunter Street Newcastle 2300

Happy New Quilting Year!

Here’s to making quilts that comfort, warm and 

make their people happy in 2026.

Quilt made by Val Nadin 

📷 Sue Crowe 

Summer reading, viewing, puzzle links

Textile Talk: Victoria Findlay Wolfe interviewed by Teresa Duryea Wong

Victoria Findlay Wolfe talked to Teresa Duryea Wong about Victoria’s new book, “The Quilting Experience: A Celebration of Community and Patchwork,” and exhibition, “Option Expedition.” …  Quilt Alliance, 14  May 2025

The Quilt Show: online Puzzles!

Summer entertainment for quilters.

A long list of online jigsaw puzzles of quilts - no table space taken up, no pieces to lose, or to pack up!

And a long luster of memory matching puzzles, where each ‘card’ is a quilt block. 

One Hundred Stitches, One Hundred Villages: The Beauty of Patchwork from Rural China

In rural Chinese villages today, women are creating dynamic patchwork textiles, as their mothers and grandmothers did before them … Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 

Exhibition book:
Chinese Patchwork: Ancient Origins, New Expressions
Nancy Berliner with photographs by Lois Conner, MFA Boston  

ISBN: 978-0-87846-907-9

Sensing Place – Student Exhibition 2025: Outer Sensing, Inner Seeing

The artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham believed that her perception of nature involved ‘outer sensing and inner seeing’. This is a way of observing the outside world that involves using all of the senses, assimilating the information in the mind, and then evoking a response using imaginative creativity.

For this exhibition, each of you has taken a walk in your environment and has sensed, selected, and documented what the writer Steven Feld described as your ‘tingling resonances and bodily reverberations’. In the brief, I asked that the response to your observations should express the essence of your experience and should involve a joyful and playful use of colour, texture, and materials. I encouraged you to use your imagination and creativity to develop something unique and extraordinary … Fibre Arts Take Two, December 2025

The Fibre Arts Take Two home page also includes links to past student exhibitions, and  Friday Fibre Artists podcasts.

Merry Quilting Christmas

 

Fairholme Quilters Exhibition 2026

We are looking forward to bringing you the 2026 Fairholme Quilters Exhibition in May. Further details will be available early in 2026.

Map data from Open Street Map

 

Australian Quilt Show 2026 entries open

 All details from Craft Events:

https://craftevents.com.au/2026-aqs-enter-your-quilt/

Community quilts 2025

Here are 63 community quilts we made this year - the ones that were photographed (a few always escape). We know that several more are already in progress for next year’s collection.

We don’t set targets for a particular number of community quilts to be made each year, and members contribute whatever they wish to throughout the year. Much of the fabric used is donated. Some quilts are worked on by several people, some arrive fully formed. We always find homes for them with regular donations to community groups, occasional donations to disaster relief efforts, occasional donations to fundraisers, and to individual requests via members.

It takes a team of people to produce such a collection, and to get them to those who need them. Our thanks to everyone: those who organise monthly ‘sit and sew’ days; manage the community stash, and batting supplies; store finished quilts and distribute them to their new owners; donate fabric and thread from their own stashes; help out in numerous ways during sit and sew days; and those who quilt and bind others’ quilt tops. Two of our members who are long-arm quilters regularly donate their time and skills.

We think of ourselves as quilters, but we are volunteers too, supporting community. It’s a lot of work, but has great benefits for us as well, building and sustaining skills, friendships and connections while we do something we love. Our monthly sit and sew days have much appreciated social benefits.

 

Award winners’ galleries - Australian State and Territory Quilt Shows 2025

Bernina Australia Best of Show Awards 2025

Each year Bernina Australia sponsors  ‘Best of Show’ awards at each State and Territory quilt show. 2025 Best of Show winners:

Sue de Vanny: Winner at the Victorian Quilters Showcase 2025 for her quilt "Eve of Destruction".
Lynda Sturm: Winner at QuiltWest 2025 for her quilt "Cassandra's Quilt".
Susanne Cody: Winner at the QuiltNSW Exhibition 2025 for her quilt "One Earth-One Chance".
Christine Garrett: Winner at the Territory Quilts Exhibition 2025 for her quilt "City Scape".
Tracey McConnon: Winner at Island Quilts 2025 for her quilt "Day's End".
Glenys Cheng: Winner at the Queensland Quilters Inc. Quilt Show 2025 for her quilt "Reds"
Tara Sneidze: Winner at the South Australian Quilters Festival of Quilts 2025 for her quilt “Lily Rosenberry Revisited”
Lyn Keogh: Winner at Canberra Quilters 2025 Exhibition for her quilt “My Imaginary Garden”

 

Online galleries of the award winners of 2025 State and Territory shows are available at the following links:

Quilt NSW 2025 Sydney Quilt Show - to download a .pdf of all the awards made at the Sydney Quilt Show. click on the link on the home page:

The photographs of the award winning quilts follow the list of  certificates of recognition and the list of show sponsors and thanks to volunteers. The Best of Show and Viewers’ Choice quilts are at the end of the document - it is well worth scrolling through the whole listing.

 QuiltWest 2025 , West Australian Quilters

 2025 Member's Exhibition - Canberra Quilters Inc

 2025 Island Quilts, Tasmanian Quilting Guild

 Festival of Quilts 2025, South Australian Quilters

 Queensland Quilters 2025 Quilt Show

Kona Colour of the Year 2026

Announced by Robert Kaufman Fabrics, manufacturers of Kona Cotton Solids, on 5 December 2025. Kona Cotton in ‘Wander’ will be available for one year:

Kona Cotton Colour of the Year 2026

‘Our 2026 Kona Color of the Year is here! Wander. A calm, confident green that invites curiosity and open-ended possibility. We can’t wait to see where Wander takes you! Tag us in your Wander-ful creations.  View the look-book, fabric, projects and precuts on our website now and visit your local Kona stocked store this month.’

www.robertkaufman.com/release/2026/coty/

#konacotton #konacoty #konacoty2026 

Kona Cotton Solids are readily available in Australia.  Two Green Zebras is the Australian wholesale distributor.

Our last community quilt finishes for the year

Noelle has been tidying up, and finishing off some
finished community quilts, including this gentle  
version of Miriam’s ‘Little Women’ pattern.
Quilted by Laura.

Noelle’s second find in her cupboard features 30s and 40s
reproduction fabrics and a fabulous wavy striped border.

Lynette collected some blocks and some complementary fabrics
 from a community donation and magicked up a vibrant quilt.

Susan M made nine pieced pineapple blocks, and
passed on to the group choose sashing and backing.
Lynette quilted the top and added binding.