In the recent newsfromjude post on March 10th, (CATCHING UP, AGAIN)...... I made the following comment at the end of the post...............There was another visit that I can't talk about yet, but it has been very special to have people staying again, and made me realise how much I have missed this for the past year.
It is now possible to talk about that visit as it is "public" knowledge at last. By public, I mean that all has been revealed on the Quilters Guild of SA facebook page! In recent months, a couple of ladies in the Guild have been travelling around to various quilting groups and also quilters homes, with their video and having a bit of a chat and checking out what they are doing. Sometime ago I received a phone call enquiring whether they could head out into the country and visit Bordertown. In April our group will be celebrating the 25th year since we started so it seemed timely that they visit. The former Guild magazine (Patches) has been replaced with an online monthly edition, called IPatch, which is emailed to members.
Now that you have that background info I will tell you about the Bordertown visit. The "2 roving reporters", Cindy and Jane, and QGSA President, Chris O'Brien made the 3 1/2 hour journey to visit. They arrived in time for lunch on Sunday and enjoyed an overnight stay and some stitching time at Number 8.
Sunday evening about 20 members of our group enjoyed getting to know our city guests with a delicious meal at the heritage Mundulla Hotel, which is about 10 minutes drive from Bordertown.
The QGSA conducted some online Mystery projects during isolation in 2020 and a few our members made some of these. We had a show and tell of the quilts we had made, which totalled about 15, but sorry I don't have more photos.
A few of the quilter's husbands enjoyed a meal while we gathered. Cindy is the "interviewer" of the duo and decided to do an "impromptu" interview with the husbands.
After a morning of stitching and chatting, we headed to the CWA Hall where our group meets twice a month. It was a hive of activity and the city visitors sat down for more stitching and chatter and some of their own show and tell.
Cindy wandered around the room and chatted to each member, while Jane filmed. This will be posted on the QGSA Youtube channel with a link in the IPatch magazine. (I guess I need to tell you that they also chatted and filmed me in my sewing room.)
There will also be news articles in the IPatch, one featuring our Angels group, another giving a summary of the Gum Tree Quilters 25 history and another of My Journey. As we are now "up there" on the YouTube channel, perhaps we can claim to be famous?? Although I hardly think I will be fronting up to another video anytime soon. It's not a lot of fun being filmed and unfortunately this is very obvious in my video
All too soon it was time for their departure, after just over 24 hours of fun, chatter and stitching. We appreciated the effort they made travelling so far to visit us. I hope they enjoyed their country trip. I certainly enjoyed having visitors again, and thank them very much for the lovely gifts they brought, yummy chocolates, a fuschia and 4 cyclamen plants.
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I have included the articles below that have been printed in I-Patch magazine for you to read, as well as a record for my blog.....................
25 Years of GUM TREE
QUILTERS
Who would have thought that a decision made 25 years ago to form a
patchwork group would have led to Gum Tree Quilters becoming a hub of
creativity and community.
In April
1996, quilter Sue Nitschke placed an advert in the local newspaper, putting out
a call for interested quilters to form a group. 12 ladies responded to this “call out” and the
decision was made to form a group called “Gum Tree Quilters” and by the end of
that year, membership was 17.
In February
2004 a meeting was held with the group deciding to become a constituted group.
The inaugural President of the Gum Tree Quilters was Lois King, who remains an
active member today and is one of the current 43 members, which includes 2
Honorary members – Mignon Turnbull and Pat Matthews.
The purpose
of the group has changed little since its beginning, an enthusiasm for
patchwork and quilting is still GTQ’s main focus. The personality of the group
is a happy one. All have very busy lives
but friendships have been nurtured and supported in a caring environment,
especially for women from rural areas which can sometimes experience tough
economic and seasonal conditions.
On Australia
Day in 2006, The Gum Tree Quilters were awarded the “Event of the Year” in the
Tatiara. President Mignon Turnbull gracefully accepted the Award on the Group’s
behalf for the recognition given to the group’s 2005 Quilt Exhibition. This was
a very proud moment for all members.
In 2007 the
Bordertown Hospital asked GTQ to design a wall hanging for the Aged Care
residential wing. The two tactile wall
hangings ‘Four Seasons’ and ‘Naive Farm Scene’ still hang in the Hospital
corridors.
Until 2018,
the group met at the Anglican Church Hall before relocating to the CWA Hall.
The group meetings are held on the 1st Monday and the 3rd
Thursday of each month and this move has meant quilters can now enjoy their
craft and conversation in air-conditioned comfort!
Our very
first retreat was held at Robe in 2004 for a fun Beach Babes and Calendar Girls
weekend. The photo below shows that they
are not afraid of a bit of fun as they perform the Calendar Girls sequence,
just wrapped in quilts!
Since then weekend retreats at a farm stay
camp have been held and tutors attended, or one of our members conducted a
special project workshop and sometimes the weekend is a sewing catch up to
finish items for the exhibition. The
talented tutors who have visited GTQ’s include Faye Packham, Julie Haddrick,
Gina Burgess, Michele Hill, Lessa
Siegele, Heather Ridley, Gloria Loughman, Pam Holland, and Kerryn Brand. An
over the border exchange with Kaniva Windmill Stitches and Gum Tree Quilters
has also been a pleasant enjoyable events.
The ‘Green
Triangle’ day is a yearly gathering of quilters from the South East of South
Australia and Western Victoria and was always a well attended day with lots of
“show and tell” and local shops to tempt us with their wares. Gum Tree Quilters
hosted this event in 2000 and 2010.
The age of
members ranges from 40 to 90. Consequently ‘O’ Birthdays are a very special
celebration, as is the Christmas Party to end the year. The group banner was
designed and made by members. It’s
proudly on show at all our functions.
Gum Tree
Quilters held their first exhibition in 1997 in what was known as the Walkway
Gallery. Since then exhibitions have
been held every two years in the Mundulla and Bordertown Town Halls and the
Bordertown Basketball Stadium. 2021 will be the 13th exhibition and
the first in a pandemic! In an exhibition year, the President issues a
challenge to members to sew a block in a particular pattern, size and colour
for a raffle quilt. The money raised
goes to a chosen charity. Gum Tree Quilters have been generous in its support
of charities and the beneficiaries have been many. The group has also
participated in many Biggest Afternoon Teas held in conjunction with the
Biggest Quilting Bee and raised funds for the Cancer Council. Since 2005 the
group has donated approximately $25,000 to the Cancer Council and local
charities.
During 2020,
the year of COVID, the monthly email newsletter was up graded to fortnightly,
to enable members to keep in touch and be informed on what everyone was
doing. Photos of member’s happy sewing
spaces, projects, birthdays, news and sometimes a favourite recipe featured.
Recently a new segment was included: “A Few Moments with a Member” telling of
their quilting journey.
18th
April 2021, exactly 25 years after that first meeting, Gum Tree Quilters will gather
in the CWA Hall for the first of a year of celebrations. We are looking forward to a year filled with
Covid Safe events that enables our members to come together and enjoy each
other’s company as this group has done for a quarter of a century!
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GUM NUT ANGELS
In November 2007 at a meeting of the
Gum Tree quilters, Lois King and Judy Simcock presented the idea of a forming a
charity arm of the group to make quilts and donate them to groups and
individuals in need of the comfort of a lovingly made quilt. It was decided to name the group the Gum Nut
Angels, and a Gum nut logo was designed by one of the members and is included
on the label of each quilt.
The Gum Nut Angels meet every third
Thursday of the month at Judy’s who has provided storage for the donated
materials and a place to cut sew and quilt. Members arrive to sort the fabrics and partly
made tops, plan, then cut and piece together. Using donated fabrics, means that
all the quilts are scrappy, and it is sometimes a challenge when the member who
started a top the month before is not present the next time, and has left no
notes about their plan?? The finished tops are then quilted by members and
binding added.
The Angels support and enable local
organisations to raffle quilts and raise funds for their causes. Quilts have
been donated to the aged care wing at our local hospital. Others have been donated
to Bush fire victims or national disaster appeals.
Many quilts
have been gifted to local individuals and families suffering illness or
unfortunate circumstance. While we don’t gift the quilts expecting
“thankyou’s”, we have received many notes from grateful recipients who express
that they were overwhelmed by the thoughtful generosity of the group.
Frequently the recipients comment that the quilts compliment their home décor.
The group
collaborated in 2018-19 with hospital staff and elderly residents to construct
two quilts which are now used as “covering quilts” when the deceased are moved
from their hospital room.
The numbers
of members attending each month’s sewing day varies, depending what is
happening in their other lives. Some days the sharing and caring takes precedence
over the stitching, but there is always a quilt available for someone in need. Over
the past 15 years the Bordertown Gum Nut Angels have made more than 150 quilts.
This
collaboration of quilters proves a wonderful creative outlet for many of the Angels
who have made enough quilts of their own to satisfy themselves and their
families.
Our photo
shows the Gum Nut Angels finishing bindings on quilts.
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MY JOURNEY
The eldest of 5 children, I went to school in
Murray Bridge and lived on a farm at Brinkley.
My childhood was happy. I enjoyed school, played sport on Saturdays,
church on Sundays and enjoyed many family caravan holidays. Because I had 3
younger brothers, I never had to do any farm work. My time was spent indoors. I learnt to cook and sew. From an early age I
was using Mum’s treadle machine to make outfits for my dolls and later myself. (see
the dress in photo below)
After school
I worked for 3 years in the local newspaper office. In 1973 I married the love
of my life and we moved from the district, first to Crystal Brook, then to
Brinkworth where our first 2 children were born. We then moved to Bordertown
and share-farmed a dairy while developing our own farm at Mundulla. I thought I
was busy being a “townie” with 2 children, but it was a walk in the park in
comparison. Dairy life meant milking over 100 cows twice a day and every day of
the year. This “farm girl” suddenly found out how little she really knew about
farming!! …….Our next move was to purchase our own dairy at Jervois, and then later
to a larger dairy at The Point. After another 10 years, and now with 4
children, we moved out of dairying to a mixed farm near Bordertown.
All of this
time I had been sewing - Clothes for myself, the children and household
furnishings. It wasn’t until daughter
number 2 was married in 1996, that I had a dedicated sewing room!! It was then I
made my first quilt, using remnants from those years of sewing. (Of course I
had thrown nothing away!) I used a piece
of paper as a pattern and scissors to cut squares. Nothing lined up very well.
It was a hotchpotch of different fabrics. You can imagine the result. I used thick
poly wadding from that era, backed it and added a binding, with no thought to
quilting it! I still have it. It is a reminder of where I started.
Soon after I discovered rotary
cutters and cutting mats and my quilting journey began. Looking back now and
knowing I am definitely not a hand sewer and much prefer machine work, I
realise if I had started my quilting journey with templates, scissors and hand
piecing I probably wouldn’t have kept going.
I guess we
all have thoughts and plans for our life.
At the age of 19, having come from a happy family life, I expected to
head into the “happily ever after” of fairy tales. I soon learned that life isn’t really like
that and my life journey took me to places I had never imagined. There is that
saying – “when life gives you scraps, make quilts”, and that is what I did.
Quilting, my faith and family, kept me on track when life was not easy.
Life moved
along, and I made many quilts for friends and family and quilted them on my
domestic machine. The quilting was mainly SID and outline quilting. Nothing too elaborate, but a Queen size quilt
was not an easy task on my domestic. In 1996 I joined Gumtree Quilters, learned
a lot more and had, and still do have, a lot of fun. In 2000 we left the farm
and moved into Bordertown. My stash was growing, and the moving guys had a lot
to say about the large number of boxes that were labelled sewing room!
I had always
dreamed of having a longarm quilting machine like I had seen advertised in
patchwork magazines, but they take up a lot of space that I didn’t have. One day, driving into my carport, the lightbulb
came on and I knew I had the perfect space!! It was time for action - building
plans, painting, finance arranged and an order was placed for my Gammill machine.
It was exciting and terrifying at the same time, as now I was making these
decisions on my own and totally responsible for the debt!
In 2002, my business, Cornerstone Creations
Machine Quilting commenced. I felt I was being led on a journey and was at
peace. In the Bible, Jesus is referred to as the Cornerstone, and I wanted Him
to be the Cornerstone of my life and business also.
It was quite
a learning experience to develop my skills, with much PPP (Practice, Patience
and Perseverance). Sometime later 2 good
friends thought I was “good enough” and gave me their quilts to do. I am very
thankful for all who have trusted me with their creations over the last 19
years and I have quilted about 3,000 quilts for customers. With the great
variety of styles, colours and patterns that come through my door, it is like
going to a quilt show every day. It is the best feeling to finish a quilt and
see how it has come to life. I pin the quilts up behind my machine (who I call
Max), and wait for them to “talk” to me about how they should be quilted.
I have been
fortunate to win awards in SA, Victorian and local shows, as well as travelling
to other states for classes and training conferences. In 2006 I was humbled to
win the QGSA Best of Show award. Many customers have entered their quilts into
shows and won ribbons, although the real prize is seeing your quilt hanging in
a state show. (Photo below with my wholecloth quilt, Woven Inspiration, and
quilted on my Gammill Premier, with no computer.)
My journey continued
and in 2007 I purchased another Gammill, an Optimum with the Statler computerised
software. As I had done my “apprenticeship”, I now had the best of both worlds
by combining the computer with my freehand skills.
After having
my Best of Show quilt valued I became interested in learning how to do this and
joined the Valuation Panel (now Appraisal). Later I joined the Judging Panel
and enjoyed extending my knowledge and venturing to the city. My first Quilt
Encounter was when it was at Roseworthy and then Immanuel and these camps were
such a lot of fun with fantastic classes with great teachers.
Sometime in
those years I taught basic patchwork and Embellished quilt classes at my house
and quilters came from other areas to join in. In 2010 the house across the
road came up for auction, and another lightbulb moment came. I decided this
would be the perfect place to renovate and hold quilting retreats. (And I went
into debt again!) This house was named “The Sanctuary”. The perfect place for
quilters to come for “time out”, leaving the distractions of home behind, to
sit, sew and share life.
In 2011 I
commenced writing a blog to showcase my quilting and the retreats at The
Sanctuary. Since those early days I have added more of my life and each year I
get a book printed.
For the 5
years I owned that house, we had some great times, with visiting teachers
(including Faye Packham, Heather Ridley and Michele Hill), UFO, Mystery quilt
and Christmas in July retreats. Probably the highlight each year was the Pink retreat
held in September. Back in 2008 I had journeyed through breast cancer. These
weekends were a fundraiser in appreciation for the help I received. More than
$10,000 has been raised for BCNA from the Pink weekends. The retreats have
continued in my own house since 2015 until Covid came along. We have had so
much fun and many lasting friendships have been formed.
In 2015 I
acquired some surplus shop stock and added another avenue to my business. I
have fabric for sale and also cut “Ready, Set, Sew” kits for Mystery retreats
or groups to purchase for their own programmes. These weekends have been very
popular and a lot of fun. Girls seem to
appreciate that the decisions re colour and style are already made, the fabrics
are cut and all that is needed is sit and sew! I love to take a collection of
fabric, scan them, sit down with EQ8 and design a quilt using them and cut it
all up ready for a kit.
A highlight
of my quilting journey was in 2018 when I joined Heather Ford and the Aussie
Quilters for an amazing trip to the US. We spent time at Paducah, visited Jenny
Doan at Missouri Star, Amish country and many quilt shops. Of course I added to
my stash!
2020 was the year of change for many people
and for me too. While I still quilt for others, I am doing less. The retreats
are on hold for now. I still have a LOT of fabric and will continue to cut
packs and kits for sale. It was the year I learnt about Zoom, a new way to hold
a sewing day with friends when travel is restricted. There are many ideas in my
head about the direction going forward. Maybe I might finish some of my many
WIP’s?
And so the journey continues………..you
never know where life will take you, but I can testify that negatives can be
turned into positives and trust that God will continue to lead me.
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If you have read through all of this I thank you. My visitor went to church without me this morning, as the face is not a pretty sight so I am staying indoors. Now it's lunch time, so better head to the kitchen and see what I can rustle up. Will be back in due course with further updates of newsfromjude.
Blessings, From Jude
