‘A Gift of Quilts’ is the project being organised by Jenny Rundle and Sharon Garrick plus a team to encourage stitchers all over the UK to make and donate up to 500 patchwork quilts.  The object is to give a quilt to each country participating in the London Olympics and Paralympics in 2012 (The Games) as a unique sign of friendship and peace.

The “Gift of a Quilt” is open to anyone, any age, any skills, it can be an individual, a group of friends, a village project, a school project, a community project involving care homes, day centre’s, all you need to be able to do is hold a needle.

We will endeavour to keep the total updated as often as possible. It is not too late to make a quilt and register it with us.  In fact register before you finish it so we know how many we have got coming in. The quilt on the right is a detail of one made by the Clifton Quilters for the Project.

Although we will not be having stand space at Sandown this year Sharon will be at Sandown on the morning of Sunday 20th June and will have registration forms handy!  If you see her do stop her, say hello and register a quilt!  The quilt pictured is by Meta Snell

Visit our New Items page to see how joining the U3A was the start of friendships renewed and a new patchwork group being formed with a view to making a quilt for A Gift of Quilts. Burscough developed originally as a two small farming villages (Burscough and Burscough Bridge) on a low ridge above the West Lancashire Coastal Plain, and has Viking roots — Burh-skogr = fortress in the woods.  At the 2001 Census, the population of the parish stood at 8,968.

Project co-Ordinator Sharon  Garrick was the guest on Radio Odstock's My Special Selection programme on May 20th.  Presenter Robyn Bryan and her assistant Amy asked Sharon a number of questions all about the Gift of Quilts project and played a selection of Sharon's favourite music.  The hour long show was broadcast to the whole of the Odstock community at Salisbury District Hospital. (I have to say too that it was great fun!  I could get a taste for broadcasting.)

March saw the Project Team heading up north to attend the Quilters Guild AGM in Southport,(26-28 March 2010) with our Tombola and Grand Raffle.  It was hard work but so enjoyable to meet up with old friends and make new ones and to sell all our tickets to raise £400 to help our funding.  We also took lots of new registrations for quilts and are so pleased that we have enough now to give to the countries coming to the Olympics and now we need them for the Paralympics.  So, if you've not sent your registration in please do so as soon as possible.

For those of you who may never have been to Southport this was the view from the hotel window.  We looked out over the roof top of the Southport Conference Centre onto the sea flats. The SCC was more than big enough to cope with the 319 quilters who attended this event and many of them registered to make a quilt for the project.

The team will be at the Festival of Quilts at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham for the whole of the show.  This will be a great opportunity to stop by and say hello and to register a quilt!  We will have a few of the already finished quilts with us and as always we are really happy to talk quilting with you. Tell us about your ideas and share your thoughts on the work you are doing for the project.

We can supply you with large format copies of any of the pages on our web site.  Just contact us through our contact page.  If you need assistance with cutting, marking or sewing we will put you in touch with a "Quilting Buddy" to help.