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Schoolhouse Quilters Raffle
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Schoolhouse Quilters Raffle
Enter the raffle to win the Aiyana quilt.
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Aiyana won First prize at the Ekka for Group made quilts.
- Aiyana won First prize at the Ekka for Group made quilts.
Schoolhouse Quilters is supporting The Lady Musgrave Trust
The Schoolhouse Quilters group based in Kenmore has worked together to create the beautiful quilt “Aiyana” to be raffled with funds to benefit The Lady Musgrave Trust and help young women experiencing, or at risk of homelessness.
The raffle will be drawn on 28 November 2023 and the winner will be notified by phone and email. The Lady Musgrave Trust is delighted to partner with our community members, such as the Schoolhouse Quilters, to raise funds to contribute to ending homelessness. “Aiyana” will be on display as part of the Quilts across Queensland display at the 2023 Ekka – make sure you check out the beautiful craftsmanship and detail in this amazing quilt.
The Lady Musgrave Trust and Schoolhouse Quilters are delighted to announce that Aiyana has been awarded First prize in the 2023 Ekka for a Group Quilt made by three or more people.
The making of Aiyana, the quilt
It all began with the generous donation of a pattern by the owner of Quilt Craft, a fabric store in Toowoomba.
The pattern was designed by Corliss Searcey of Threadbare in Castlemaine, Victoria. It is based on a quilt from the 1840s made by Mary Brown, an American quilter.
Corliss kindly allowed Schoolhouse Quilters to use part of her pattern for a charity quilt, of which they make one each year.
Schoolhouse Quilters interpretation of Mary Brown’s quilt uses the bright modern colours of Bali Batiks and Kaffe Fassett fabrics. It incorporates a unifying fabric which appears in each block – a deep maroon with a tiny stripe. This quilt needed many, many different fabrics for this quilt so members brought along fabrics from their ‘Stash’ and each fabric had to be prewashed to make sure there was no colour run.
The next step was to create a pack for each of the 35 blocks, including the pattern, instructions, photo and fabrics. Small groups of two to three expert appliquers took a block each and decided which fabrics to use for it. All the ¼ in stems had already been made by one of the wonderful members.
Each piece of fabric has been sewn down by hand using the needle-turn method of applique, with some embroidery also added.
When all the blocks were completed and joined together, the quilt was layered with cotton wadding and a backing fabric and pinned in preparation for the quilting.
Firstly, each piece of applique was quilted around very closely on the machine using a fine thread, which can hardly be seen.
Then the decorative quilting was completed, filling in the background. This takes a very long time and was done by three Schoolhouse Quilter members. The border was quilted on a long arm quilting machine. The rest was done on a domestic Bernina machine. Finally, the binding was put on using the same fabric as the back ground.
A great many members of the Schoolhouse Quilters group worked collaboratively to produce this truly stunning work.
The quilt has been entered into the Quilts Across Queensland competition at the Ekka. It will be displayed there for the duration of the Ekka.