Catching up with the news

Just at the end of our last meeting day, Tony McCrae (Lee's husband) arrived with another cupboard for us.  It's about the same size as the first one, and at the end of the month he's going to pop in and put some shelves in to it.  Thanks so much Tony and Lee, we really appreciate your support (and the extra storage space).
Also Judie's been busy delivering 11 quilts and children's bags, hats, scarves and bedsocks to the Salvation Army Women's Refuge in Chermside, and another 102 quilts to various wards in the Royal Children's Hospital along with 33 comfort bags and a couple of bags of hats, and also 65 Xray bags to Premion's Head Office in Brisbane.
We still have organisations waiting to receive quilts, so if you have any completed quilts at home, could you please bring them with you, or send them with someone to our next meeting, which is on Monday 16th.
If you are intending to participate in the machine quilting workshop that Judie is giving you will need to bring the following:

• four pieces of 50cm x 50cm homespun cotton (any colour, cream is best)
• 1 reel of cream thread or the colour to match your coloured homespun
• 1 reel of grey thread for contrast
• your 1/4" foot
• your walking foor (and accessories that came with it in the box)
• your sewing machine manual
• your Machine Quilting instructions that were sent to you via email last fortnight
• your sewing machine, together with any extension table that comes with the machine
• extra extension and power boards (named please)

It will be a fabulous day and we hope to see as many of you as possible.

March Meeting

What a fabulous turn out we had today - ladies everywhere!

And they were all very busy.

Judie gave us a lesson on rotary cutting.

I've since heard that Leone went straight home and cut over 300 squares!  What a trooper!

Several ladies from Mountain Quilters of Peachester have joined us, and they are all very prolific and supportive.  Mountain Quilters will be having their quilt show on 26th and 27th May this year and have invited Sunshine Linus to have a stand at the event.  We'll be looking for ladies to help out on the day, mostly just talking to people and telling them what we're about - how hard can that be?

We've also been invited by Kawana Quilters to attend their Show and Tell on 16th May.

Some of today's quilt tally

Thanks to Kimz Sewing and Patchwork of Warana who donated quilt tops from a workshop they had recently, and many other donations from friends who don't attend our meetings - thanks to all of them, we do so much appreciate your support.

And here's some more.  That's a touchy feely on the right

So, by the end of the day, we had ready to deliver:

18 quilts to Nambour Hospital;

16 xray bags to Nambour Hospital and 28 to Premion in Brisbane;

6 knitted/crocheted blankets to Blue Care and 1 to Premion;

 8 TouchyFeely Quilts to Mitchelton Special School;

10 Chemo turbans to Nambour Hospital Oncology;

27 pairs children's pyjamas to Lions Emergency Accommodation;

6 knitted matinee jackets, and lots of baby beanies and booties to Mater Hospital in Brisbane.

The pile just grows and grows

How special to have flannel rainbow pj's

 We're going to have an extra sewing day on Monday, April 16th, to try and catch up with some of the quilt tops that have come in and still need to be quilted.  So come along and bring your sewing machine and walking foot or free motion foot, and whatever else you think you'll need.  We'll have the tops and backs and wadding and pins, etc., and Judie is going to be giving tuition and helpful tips.

See you all then, 

Community Forum

Our Treasurer, Yvonne, has been out and about on our behalf.  This is what she has to say about it;

On Wednesday night I attended a community forum held by the Bendigo Bank, Tewantin at Tewantin State School.  About 100 people from the community attended and it was well represented by politicians from local and state government. 

Bendigo Bank holds these forums to hear what locals feel are important issues and where the bank can help with financial grants.  Profits from the community bank are channelled back into the community for their benefit. 

Each table with about 10 community members on it along with bank representatives to help listed their priorities for big ticket items and also those that would cost less than $5000.  Each table submitted their three top items to the forum and these were collated during the break and community members could have five votes for the Board of Directors to assess. for funding.  The five successful nominations are not the only ones looked at and all submissions will be considered by the bank.

The top five priorities for the Tewantin community are:

·       Funding for defensive driving courses run by Rotary

·       Another palliative care facility for the area

·       Upgrade of the radio equipment for Noosa Coastguard

·       More crisis accommodation for homeless people

·       Funding for disabled horse riders

I put together a submission on behalf of Sunshine Linus members for a grant to help us purchase batting and other equipment and hopefully it will be successful.  We should hear sooner than later so keep your fingers crossed.  The forum was well facilitated by Bendigo Bank and was a very interesting experience.

Yvonne

We're Incorporated!

Judie has been busy and has successfully applied for incorporation for Sunshine Linus.  This means that we will now be able to apply for grants from local government and other bodies.  There are other benefits too, which will be outlined in another post.

Our Monday meeting was hectic as always, with a large crowd in attendance.

Yvonne's vanity boxbag workshop was very successful, the group had quite a production line going.

And they're all very happy too.

We had lots of lovely quilts come in finished.  Here are just a few of them.

It looks like some of the ladies are a bit shy!

Leone has made 17 xray tote bags which will be delivered to Premion Oncology Unit in Nambour. 

22 Children's quilts and 3 Adult quilts will be going to Sonshine Sanctuary (a refuge for women and children escaping domestic violence), and we have also sent 5 baby cardigans and some knitted caps to the Nursery Ward in Nambour Hospital.

We have several people to thank for donations this month.

Ms Sandra Hester has donated a huge amount of polycotton plain and print fabrics, which we use for binding our quilts.

Ms Beverley Matthews has donated beautifully knitted baby boottees.

Ms Barbara Orr has donated an awesome amount of quilting fabric from her stash as she has reluctantly had to declutter (how lucky for us!).

And Alpha & Omega Recycling Shop in Noosaville has donated a large quantity of fabric suitable for use in our weighted blankets.

Thanks so much to all of you - your donations enable us to keep supplying comforts to those in our community that need our support.

At our next meeting on March 26th Judie will be giving a workshop on rotary cutting.  So if you'd like to learn some tips and techniques to make perfect cuts first time every time, bring a cutting mat, a rotary cutter with a new blade and a straight ruler.

Until next time, keep stitching...

Vanity Box Workshop

At our meeting next Monday Yvonne will be giving us a hands on demonstration/workshop on making these delightful little zippered boxes.

Yvonne has prepared 18 kits and if you would like to participate in this workshop you will need to bring the following with you:
Your sewing machine with walking foot and zipper foot;
White or neutral thread and black thread;
Two loaded bobbins, one with white/neutral thread and one with black thread.
All fabric, backing and zippers will be provided with the lesson.
It should be fun and at the end of the day we'll have 18 more box bags to pass on to people to need them - how good is that?

Further to our last post the quilts that were to be given to the Women's Refuge in Chermside were quickly redirected to Banksia Ward at Royal Children's Hospital (the largest children's oncology ward in Queensland) who had an urgent need for them, and we have also supplied Mitchelton Special School, Calmvale Special School and Redland District Special School with 6 weighted blankets and 1 Touchy Feely quilt to each school, and also 6 weighted blankets to Darling Point Special School.
See you all on Monday,