Welcome to my world of quilts. For over 30 years I have belonged to friendship groups where women have made numerous quilts for themselves, their families and friends. Most of these quilts have never been seen by anyone else and so now is the time to bring them out of hiding and let you see the talent and creativity of these women.
I have been sewing and making things for about as long as I can remember but it wasn’t until I took a quilting class with Nonie Fisher in 1983 that I found my niche and became a quilter.
That year I made my first quilt, a sampler, and since then I have always had a quilt or two on the go.
The following year I was invited to join a friendship group that would meet once a month and make quilts for each other AND THAT’S WHERE THIS STORY REALLY BEGINS…….
IT’S A STORY ABOUT FRIENDSHIP QUILTS AND THE WOMEN WHO MAKE THEM, THE ENDURING FRIENDSHIPS THAT HAVE BEEN BROUGHT ABOUT BY A MUTUAL LOVE OF QUILTS, FABRIC, PATTERN AND THE PROCESS OF QUILTMAKING.
Nonie encouraged many of us who had learned from her to join a group to meet in each other homes on Wednesdays to sit and sew and learn from and inspire each other. That group is still meeting every Wednesday and many of the original members are still quilting together more than 30 years later. When we started we had preschoolers and children at primary school. Now most of us are grandparents. Over the years we have formed strong and enduring friendships. We have supported each other through many of life’s good and not so good times and enjoy each other’s company every week with lots of laughs and lots of quilts.
In 1994 I was asked to join another group of six women who began meeting in each other’s homes on one Friday each month to make friendship quilts. Each month one person took a turn. She would have to choose the block and the number of blocks that she wanted each us to make, the choice of colour and sometimes also giving the group some fabric that would be used in each block. On the same day the next person would be chosen so they could prepare to hand out their instructions the following month. When we met again the following month we brought our blocks along and gave them to that lucky person. Then the next person would hand out their instructions. That year each of us received enough blocks to make into a quilt top.
This is my first friendship quilt, made in 1984. I asked everyone to make a 14 inch star of any kind and gave them some of the solid blue and the cream for the background. I quilted and finished it the next year but while I was finishing it off we were already making quilts again and with the prospect of them piling up we decided that perhaps in the following year we should spend our time quilting with each other rather than making new ones. So in the third year, each month we put a quilt in the frame and sat and quilted, just like an old- fashioned quilting bee.
That was our last year together as a friendship group but we all made and quilted or partly quilted two quilts each. A great beginning!