Another charity quilt project.

You may have noticed the new icon I have added to my side bar - Aussie Hero Quilts.  I found this blog whilst surfing other blogs, as one does - and decided immediately to be a participant.  Jan-Maree lives in NSW, and after seeing a similar blog in the USA dedicated to making quilts for their serviceman and women overseas, she searched the internet to see if anyone here was doing the same for our Aussie soldiers.  Finding nothing, she decided to start up something herself, as she already has contacts in the Armed Services, and discovered that our servicemen would be tickled pink to receive handmade quilts from the sheilas back home!
As luck would have it, Jan-Maree came down to Melbourne this weekend for her MIL's birthday, and she asked on her blog if any of her readers would like to meet up for coffee at Beasley's Nursery in Warrandyte.  Beasley's is about 10 minutes from my home, so I wasn't going to miss this opportunity of meeting this lady and finding out more about the background.  There were two other ladies (and one husband) there when I arrived, and the five of us stayed chatting over coffee for about two hours.  I asked them if they knew of Jan MacFadyen and her work, and they had heard of her, but didn't know exactly what she does, so I enlightened them.

I think it is fantastic that we have these two highly motivated, generous ladies to organise comfort quilts for needy people here, and our servicemen/women stationed overseas. I am not an expert quilt maker by any means; in fact I don't even finish mine - I just make the tops.  But both Jan Mac and JanMaree are happy to accept the pieced tops, and finish them off to distribute.   Going by the blogs I read (and some people I know personally - neighbours and rellies who don't read this blog!), there are many women out there who just love making quilts, but have run out of people to give them to, so they just store them in cupboards to be rotated around their home.  If anyone reading this has excess quilts in their home, perhaps you might consider donating one or more to people less fortunate who are in real need of something to keep them warm on cold nights.  And if you have a huge stash of fabric that you know in reality you will never use in a hundred lifetimes, why not make it up into quilts or quilt tops and send them on to Jan Mac or Jan-Maree - both of whom you will find on my side bar.

OK, end of lecture and hopping off my soap box.   I'm off to get some of my tartan materials out and start cutting!