Off to new homes

A lovely stack of community quilts being packed for delivery to Royal Far West, an organisation that provides services for children from rural and remote regions, that has  commissioned quilts for their young clients.

Fairholme Quilt Show 2026 - raffle quilt

Our 2026 raffle quilt is ‘Bespoked’, a nine block version of the quilt designed by Annette Ferguson, who has generously given permission for us to use her pattern. The scrappy strips were made by several members, providing a wide variety of colours and tones. The background fabric is a Victoria Findlay Wolfe low volume print. The large blocks create an appealing contrast between the low volume background fabric, and movement in the repeating directional changes of the ‘spokes’. 

Our thanks to Carol who coordinated the production, everyone who contributed and Laura who has custom quilted it. The finished quilt measures 68 inches (172 cm) square.

The second raffle prize is a modern quilted tote bag made and donated by Jeni.

 

Raffle tickets will be available from late February from Fairholme members, and will be readily available at the Quilt Show on 16 and 17 May 2026. The raffle will be drawn at the close of the show on Sunday 17 May.

New community quilt finishes

Our community quilt stash is building up for 2026 - benefiting from our summer break, when many of us retreated from the heat, staying indoors, catching up on sewing in cool spaces.

Elaine G grew a garden of appliqued flower pots
and floral patchwork.

Jenny made two quilts from the whimsical giraffe print.

Jill gathered the left over strips and discarded pieces
from an earlier improv quilt into log cabin-ish blocks.

More summer sewing

Amanda’s daughter asked for ‘frogs and
books’ to be incorporated into her quilt …

… so each colored block has either a frog print or a book print.

Susan K made ‘Not all oceans are blue’ for a young relative.
 The pattern is from ‘The big book of scrappy quilts’ where
it's called 'Open Season'. She said ‘I liked making it and I love 
the wave pantograph expertly applied by @quiltingfinesse 
who always does such a good job. 
And apparently its new owner loves it too!

Jenny found this cheerful quilt top unfinished in her cupboard.
 After trimming to a usable size for a community quilt,
it was quilted by Laura …

… and a micro stripe binding was added
from the community stash.

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

Gallery 76

76 Queen Street, Concord West 2138

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

Closed public holidays

‘Echoes and Silences’ is an exhibition of work
by members of Untethered Fibre Artists
Gallery hours Tuesday - Sunday 10am - 4 pm
(02) 67725255

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