Quilting ladies to display decent obsession

Andrew Mathieson
QUILTERS shouldn’t be mistaken for quitters.
Not just in name but their passion.
Just like proud mothers with baby photos, they plan to gather their quilts together to let strangers admire them at an annual Geelong Patchwork and Quilters Guild exhibition this weekend.
Exhibition convenor Cheryl Andrews describes quilting as like an obsession.
She points out that the craft can be painstakingly slow at times.
“One of the quilts in our exhibition was started at a workshop in 1995,” Ms Andrews said.
Ms Andrews also knows a thing or two about family links in quilting.
“Mum made a quilt for my bed when I turned 14 and from then on us kids just had them,” she says.
“When mum made a quilt, everything else stopped.”
Ms Andrews tipped that a sunset scene and a black arcade of Melbourne’s architecture were designs set to wow patrons among the 165 quilts on show.
A Geelong guild member had patched together a Gary Ablett design, while another would show off a rival St Kilda quilt at the exhibition, she said.
The smallest quilt would be 21cm by 17cm.
The exhibition opens today at Deakin University’s waterfront campus and ends on Sunday.