New community quilt finishes

 

Our community quilts are often made as a team effort.
This one landed with us as a small collection of churn dash
blocks, made in her typically bright prints, and generously
donated by Bernice Krige. Susan Mack added in some
additional blocks with animal print centres and a mix of
bright and pastel borders, and added a very cute elephant
print outer border, for an enchanting quilt.

A quilt designed to use lots and lots of small scraps.
Elaine G made this one for our community quilts collection,
using Vinuta Sewing’s video tutorial on You Tube:
https://youtu.be/cGUo_RDVHFQ.
It’s less complicated than it looks, using just two pattern
pieces, and clever rotation in each block.

It aroused a lot of interest, so we expect to see more.

The larger low volume square is the meeting point of four
smaller squares.

This quilt grew from just a few left over hand appliqued purple
circle blocks and grew and grew as Jill added more turquoise to
reduce the purple-ness, and push it to the edges.
And now it’s a 50” x 60” community quilt.

Brilliantly quilted by Laura.
The Tula Pink ‘Swallows’ wideback
was a donation to the community stash.

Roslyn: craft stall magician

 It looks like magic - the appearance of a fully stocked craft stall offering hundreds of items made and donated by our members, all beautifully presented and individually packaged and priced, ready for business from the first minute our Quilt Show opens. 

But it isn’t magic, it’s the culmination of two years of creativity, skills and hard work. While members work on individual items, Roslyn Pullen turns her creativity, skills and hard work to managing the whole: the build up of the stock, keeping track of what’s been made, storing, packaging and pricing every item, planning the display and welcoming customers.

Roslyn has been an active member of Fairholme from its earliest days, and has taken on many roles. For the last few years she has developed the craft stall into a much appreciated fundraiser with hundreds of very happy customers at quilting shows and smaller events.Roslyn and her family must be grateful for the brief respite they have from being the craft stall warehouse in between events, but Roslyn will already be casting an eye over what little remains and how that might inform planning for the next one. 

Roslyn is ably assisted by friend and fellow Fairholme quilter Jo-Ann Phillips - storing and transporting loads of stock, setting up and manning the stall. Jo-Ann says she just does as she’s told, but we know it’s much more of a partnership than that. 

This year for the show Roslyn enlisted the help of Chris Roy, another Fairholme member, to put together vintage style packs of fabric, trims, threads and linens, for use in slow stitching projects - a new, and successful line for the craft stall. There will be more.

The front foyer of our show venue (Thornleigh Community Centre) lends itself to becoming the craft stall, being visible and accessible on the way into the show and on the way out, and with good light from its north and west facing windows - it’s one of the busiest ares throughout the two days.

Thank you Roslyn and helpers for the work and talent you have put into the craft stall over the years and in 2026, and to everyone who has supported the stall by making and donating to it, and by buying from it. Congratulations on its success. We look forward to the next one.

New finishes

Do these colours remind you of anything? Laura made a Rubik’s
cube quilt for her daughter, and kept the triangular off cuts, making
them into a complimentary cushion.

A whimsical bag using some of Janice’s very favourite things -
 Liberty fabric and embroidery, working beautifully together.
Pattern by Susan Smith @notjuzahuswife, with a tweak.

Chris has made a clever block keeper, rolled around a postal
cylinder with a detachable lid that she has decorated with
the backing fabric. She chose the cylinder so that she could
not only lay her block pieces on the quilted surface, but when
it’s rolled up and secured with the ties.

Notions like threads, pins, small scissors can be stored in the
tube, its lid closed, and everything you need is kept together.

Putting the quilt display together

For the Fairholme Quilt Show, we appoint a subcommittee to plan every aspect of the two day event, which starts work about a year in advance. Helen Battellino was the 2026 Show Coordinator, guiding the whole process - thanks to Helen and the committee for a great job that resulted in a very successful event. Here’s how we put the quilt display together:

Members are asked to submit their entries about three months in advance of the show, so that the floor plan of the venue for the whole event can be developed, and frames ordered from Quilt NSW. The display is mounted the day before opening. 

We called in family and friends to help us get the quilts up and down gain for our 2026 quilt show last month - we could not have done it without them, and thank everyone that made it possible. Some of the men have done this over many years and have worked out a system to minimise bending and ladder climbing. It all fits together on the day to a floor plan drawn up by Sue Crowe, who worked with Ric Battellino to overseeing the frames construction on the day.

The quilts are delivered with a label attached showing each one’s exact position in the display plan.

Anyone who has been involved in putting a quilt show together will know that pulling down is much faster than putting it up.

The poles and hanging rods are ordered according to
 the measurements of each quilt entered in the display plan,
drawn up by Sue 

Tabletop construction of the rows reduces bending
and ladder climbing

Click here to see the completed quilt frame walk

📸 Ken Martin

📸 Ken Martin

July events

Gallery 76

76 Queen Street, Concord West 2138

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

Closed public holidays

From the East to Paris is inspired by the meeting of Modernist French and Eastern European artists in the 1920s. It explores the creative collaborations between French Modernist artists and Eastern European artists who sought refuge in Paris during and after the Russian Revolution. The era's exuberant textiles are celebrated through costumes, sculptures, wall hangings and a monumental collaborative artwork.

 

Gallery 76

76 Queen Street, Concord West 2138

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

Closed public holidays

This exhibition brings together more than a decade of work by artist Jane Bodnaruk, tracing her use of second-hand clothing and household textiles to explore women, domesticity, memory, and care.

NORTH SHORE CRAFT GROUP
Catering by Hornsby CWA

Thornleigh Community Centre
Phyllis Avenue Thornleigh 2120

Thank you Pat

Multi talented, very creative Fairholme member Pat Nerlich painted three barn style quilts to decorate the ends of the quilt frames at the #fairholmequiltshow2026 in May - they drew in visitors’ eyes as they entered the main display, looking fabulous.  Many thanks Pat.

For our 2024 Quilt Show, Pat made large paper flowers and gorgeous fantasy
fabric birds to decorate the row ends - what might she conjure up for next time?

For more information on modern barn quilts, see History of Barn Quilts, from American Patchwork and Quilting,  July 2025.

Recent community quilt finishes

Janet whipped up a cot quit from her batik stash,
including the backing.

Can you see the two slightly different blocks in this quilt made by
Elaine W? It’s a nine block version of Amy Ellis’s design
‘Whispered Lace’ from her book Modern Neutrals.

How often could you be as lucky as Anne? She went to a branch
 of The Sewing Basket to drop off some donations, and right
 there she found all of the whirlygig blocks for the centre of this
quilt, already stitched, and packaged with a length of turquoise
fabric for the sashing. So of course she bought it and finished
it into a community quilt.

This one was a team effort - the feature fabrics were donated by
members, Helen packaged them into kits with bright sashing
fabrics, and Pam put the top together. Anne took the basted top,
quilted and bound it.

Another kit of donated feature prints and sashing ended up with Jill.

The backing fabric is an early Jocelyn Proust print found at Spotlight
for a rare bargain price of $4/m just a few months ago.

A little cot quilt top made entirely from scraps in Jill’s stash,
and sashing and border fabric shopped from Sue’s …

…  the backing fabric was a donation to the community
stash, and the binding was a late find in Jill’s cupboard,
 just enough with 2” to spare. 

Quilts and their people 6 (of 6) - Fairholme Quilt Show 2026