Flood Quilts

I love a sunburnt country 

a land of sweeping plains

of rugged mountains ranges 

of droughts and flooding rains...

from 'My Country'  by Dorothea MacKellar

I know that natural disasters befall nations at any time, but the floods that hit Eastern Australia's Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria in January 2011, were completely unprecedented.

Australia had been in the grip of a drought for so long...we were all on water restrictions, building desalination plants and some towns had plans to recycle waste water...that we couldn't remember what rain looked like, let alone storms. But hit us, they did. La Nina ousted el Nino with savage fury and a series of cyclones lined up one after the other to wreck havoc on 3 states.

 A big pile to go to those that lost everything

 Quilting for Queensland

And so the mission to do something for those that lost their homes, possessions and loved ones, began. 'Quilting for Queensland', a group on Facebook, was born. Our group started with about 15 members and currently has 30 (feel free to join). We've lost count of how many quilts we have made...and that's a good thing. Some quilts went to people in cyclone affected North Queensland, the  town of Grantham in the Lockyer Valley decimatedby an inland tsunami and the flooded suburb of Goodna in eastern Ipwich.

 Flood Quilts

These are some of the quilts that my mum and I made. Some of them were machine quilted for free by a Brisbane quilter named Tamara Buchanan, who volunteered her expertise and company 'Quick Stitch Quilting'

I apologise that I can't seem to upload or change orientation of  some of these quilt backs

'Cover Story'

  'Cover Story' back

'Vinnies Rebirth'

'Vinnies Rebirth' back

'October Glow'

'October Glow' back

'Autumn Story'

'Autumn Story' back

'Garden Delight'

'Garden Delight' back detail

'Shangri-la'

'Shangri-la' back

'Eastern Inspirations'

'Cranes and Geishas'

'Cranes and Geishas' back

Tamara's quilting detail

'Sunshine Flower Fairy'

'Owly'

'Owly Twin'