We had over 50 members attend our August gathering and it was a very busy and productive day. We welcomed new members who were fascinated with the setup of the room and the functionality of the day.
We also made welcome Jo Munday and Soen Holt from the Cooinda Mental Health Centre at the Sunshine Coast Private Hospital. We recently entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Cooinda to provide resources for their fledgling craft support group, and also to offer training to the Cooinda staff on making items that may be used throughout the rest of the hospital wards. We were also very pleased to donate a sewing machine to the Cooinda craft group.
Show and Tell was amazing as usual, with lots of gorgeous items on show. We received some delightful quilts from Glenys who donated some fabrics to Sunshine Linus as well as about 15 glorious quilts.
We were also delighted and very grateful to received two beautiful quilt tops from Mountain Quilters, who had run a block challenge before their quilt show, and had put them together into two large quilt tops and donated them to us. One of our resident long arm quilters Kaye, is going to work her magic on the quilts, and we'll have pictures for you on their completion.
Here's some more eye candy on the days Show and Tell.
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| One of Leone's touchy feely quilts ready for backing. |
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| These two quilts (above and below) are just a few of the most wonderful quilts that Glenys made for us, aren't they fabulous. Thankyou so much Glenys, your work is beautiful.  |
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| Sweet little children's softies hand made by Bonney. |
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| One of our intrepid quilters, Olwyn put this quilt together using donated Suffolk puffs and hexagons. |
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| This very sporty quilt was one of a number donated to us from Nattering Needles Craft group at Stokers Siding, NSW. Thanks girls, they're terrific! |
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| Three (above and below) of a number of quilts made by Nicky |
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| One of a number of wheelchair quilts made by Jan |
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| A bit blurry, but very clever. Rosemary our resident Touchy Feely guru, has used a panel of a lion and decorated it with lots and lots of sensory tags. |
This creation (above), is called a Silly Sack and is made from good quality lycra. The idea is for a child to step into the sack, close up the Velcro opening, and jump around and have fun. This Silly Sack is a very helpful tool in helping Autistic children to expend excess energy, while the stretch of the lycra gives a "grounding" affect as well. Nicky has made half a dozen of these so far, and we can see that there will be a call for more in the future. If you have some good quality large pieces of lycra that you would like to donate for the making of these Silly Sacks, please be in touch via our email. Thankyou in anticipation.
Please take a moment and have a look at the "what we do and where it goes" page (to the right of this screen). We had a massive amount of donated items, and the distribution team of Ali, Rose, Myra & Shirley were absolute champions, sorting, counting and packing in readiness for delivery. It's the team spirit that these members and others bring to each gathering that makes the day such a joy to be part of.
Claire does it again with her wonderful inventive stitching!
The staff at Spiral asked us to make a body pillow with a sensory cover. The pillow which measures 90 cm by 150 cm will be filled with bean bag beads. The cover is made of sensory fabrics like a touchy feely but without bits hanging off it.
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| the body pillow cover |
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| the body pillow partially filled |
When the dementia advisors at Ozcare saw the sensory flower picture that was going to an aged care facility they were keen to get one themselves. They even suggested that some of the flowers could be attached by Velcro so that the picture could be changed. Five detachable crochet flowers means 120 different versions of the picture!
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| one version of the sensory flower garden |
We have two members of Sunshine Linus who very generously spend about $50.00 of their own money each month, purchasing new items of clothing including underwear and sleepware for people in need in our community. These two angels say that this is their "coffee money" that they would prefer to spend on purchasing items for needy men, women and children in our community. We are in awe of these two ladies who track down terrific bargains at various shopping outlets. Here's a list of the items the ladies purchased for us to distribute just this month:
2 boys windcheaters (with hoods), 1 girls fleecy pants, 3 girls long sleeve shirts, 1 boys fleecy pants, 1 pair cargo pants, 1 boys shirt, 1 knitted jumper for 18month child, 1 little girls dress, 1 little girls blouse, 3 packs girls undies, 3 packs of boys undies, 2 packs of shorts and shirt and undies, 2 packs of shorts, shirt and undies, 2 packs of tops and tights.
Angels indeed!
Our next gathering is an extra meeting on the 15th September. We will be having a Look and Learn workshop with Kaye on Whack and Stack technique. See you then!
