Yesterday my quilting group, The Retreating Angels, got together for a very exciting event (more later). The Retreating angels formed in 1997 to plan and then run a quilting retreat for the Southern Cross Quilters (Scquilters), the largest online quilting group in Australia and New Zealand. The Retreat was held in Adelaide in 1999, with about 120 scquilters attending from all over Australia and New Zealand. These retreats are held annually, the next one in Bendigo in April with about 270 scqilters.
The organising group had such fun and got on so well together, that we remained as a group of quilting friends, later calling ourselves The Retreating Angels. We meet regularly and together have run quilt exhibitions, had weekend retreats of our own and worked together on a number of projects, one of which was the "Dunny Quilt", which has been exhibited in shows here and overseas, winning a number of awards.
The quilt represents our ideas on the old 'outback dunny'.
When Pam Holland (international quilter and teacher - and our inspiration and motivator) asked for our help in making quilts using patterns from her wonderful '1776' quilt, for a book she wanted to write, we jumped at the chance (with some initial doubt as to whether we had the skills.). After many hours of work, some tears and frustration, but a great deal of fun and fulfilment, we finished our quilts, wrote our instructions and sent them off to be photographed.
The organising group had such fun and got on so well together, that we remained as a group of quilting friends, later calling ourselves The Retreating Angels. We meet regularly and together have run quilt exhibitions, had weekend retreats of our own and worked together on a number of projects, one of which was the "Dunny Quilt", which has been exhibited in shows here and overseas, winning a number of awards.
The quilt represents our ideas on the old 'outback dunny'.
When Pam Holland (international quilter and teacher - and our inspiration and motivator) asked for our help in making quilts using patterns from her wonderful '1776' quilt, for a book she wanted to write, we jumped at the chance (with some initial doubt as to whether we had the skills.). After many hours of work, some tears and frustration, but a great deal of fun and fulfilment, we finished our quilts, wrote our instructions and sent them off to be photographed.
This is most of the group with their projects. Pam, far right is holding the 1776 quilt.
Pam's journey with her book has taken a lot longer than she first anticipated and she has had to put in a huge number of hours to get it to the publishing stage, but finally she has made it!! Our get together yesterday was to celebrate and to launch the book with much laughter and a few misty eyes, I suspect. It is a wonderful achievement on Pam's part and we are all thrilled to see our quilts in print.
Pam's next project is to reproduce "The Bayeux Tapestry". Yikes!! The woman is unbelievable!!!
Liz Needle
