Cherry Sundays

Hi All,

Well, I am back in Sydney after a wonderful weekend away.  I will tell you more about the weekend tomorrow night once I have had time to write a bit more. Right now it is heading towards 530pm and I just walked in the door.  This is the first Cherry Sunday post and I have some lovely messages to share.   Not all of these are requests. Some are snippets of other emails I have received and I am sharing parts of them as I want to try to share with you the great sense of appreciation I receive when I read these messages.   

Hello Friends of AHQ,

I have personally seen some of the great work that Friends of AHQ have done to help those of us who are currently away from home for long periods of time. It really is heart warming to see such gratitude and I can honestly say that there are so many servicemen and women who appreciate your generosity and support.

Hi,

I am currently serving overseas in Afghaninstan and would love a quilt and/or laundry bag......pleeeeeaaaaassssseeeee!

And when I went back with the information required this was part of the response I received.

Deployed for another 3-4 months, I believe.  As far as colors/hobbies, I'm from the coast so blue or anything coastal/surf related, but I'm not fussed.....would just be stoked with a quilt/laundry bag at all LOL  Thank you very very much.

This fellow sent a thank you message to Sue and I wrote to him offering him a quilt and this was his reply.

I would also be grateful to receive an Aussie Hero Quilt. It would certainly come in handy during Canberra winters.  I don't mind what colours are in the quilt. I do enjoy race cars especially Formula 1

Thank you once again, to yourself and all the other ladies for taking the time to make these for deployed soldiers. The passion of their work comes through in the end product 

Hello Jan-Maree,

It is with great pleasure that I write this email. I received a parcel from you which, I might share (crumbs) with others?  As well as more laundry bags, thank you. I have received four boxes of laundry bags, to date, to which I have distributed out. The soldiers I have here are pleased and have informed me that they have sent a letter to the person that has made the bag, with some receiving quilts. 

On behalf of the soldiers and officers that have deployed, and are deployed, (and can you pass this onto all the other ladies and gents that are part of "Aussie Hero Quilts" ) Thank you.

Thank you to you and the lovely ladies who have joined your group. As I mentioned in my letter to Sue N the generosity is greatly appreciated by all who have received your laundry bags and quilts.

I was recently in our laundry with which we are now sharing with US soldiers. They were intrigued and quite amazed at the generosity of you all and appreciated the additional colour your bags bring to our home away from home (they have boring green bags!)  

Good Morning Aussie Quilts :)

I have been told about your wonderful service and I was wondering if I could please request a pressie. 

Im not going to lie I'm a little bit excited! :-)  

This following soon-to-be-recipient is the room mate of one of my distributors.  I asked her room mate to let her know I would be happy to arrange a quilt and laundry bag for her and this was her response.

I arrived here in Afghanistan only to discover that I must be the only person on this team who hasn't made contact with you! Examples of your Aussie Hero quilts and laundry bags are everywhere, and I feel very much behind the eight ball with my standard issue everything...

XXXXXX has given me your details and I just wanted to say thanks for thinking of us, and yes I'd love to receive a quilt or laundry bag from you and your team. I have no particular favoured hobbies, colours or teams that I feel so committed too I'd sleep under it, except the Army (sadly), and let's face it - I already have enough of that stuff on hand. As it is a gift from you, I think half the fun is letting you choose or create on my behalf.  I'd be most grateful to receive anything you make.

I've already told my two little girls at home who are most excited for me.  They are six and eight, and didn't know that I would get presents from Australia while I was over here."

I replied and asked a few questions to help guide me what to send and this is part of her response.

Hi Jan-Maree,

I would love to have a sewn on patch that identifies the Aussie Hero Quilt makers as the creators of the quilt, stating it was gifted to me, with the Operation name, and a month and year date if it is possible.

You are creating a bit of history here, so it's important to make sure I can track it through its hopefully very long life. 

My mum is from XXXXXX which has a big quilt making sub-culture (can I call it that?), so I'm very aware that these items are costly to make both in monetary and time terms. As a non-quilter (I am the first to admit my personal skill sets lie elsewhere), I genuinely appreciate the effort and talent put into making our quilts and laundry bags. Walking into the laundry room only to see randomly allocated gum nut babies, cakes and trucks and stripes dominating the eye is utterly hilarious in our camouflage and desert khaki world, one of the many small but satisfying moments of my week.

Please make sure your ladies know this for me!

Regards,

I don't think I have shared this following one but if I have bear with me - this one is special as it comes from a deployed QUILTER who is going to be the recipient of one of our Mystery Quilts......once I have time to organise it!  Stay tuned.

Good Afternoon, 

I am so pleased to hear about a quilt group sewing for such a worthy cause.

I am a quilter who is deployed (separated from my machine - oh the injustice),  I started quilting with Pam Holland many many moons ago, boy was that a stitch and bitch club, and such a brilliant way to learn the basics whilst building on her fabulous knowledge.  She amazed me as she never stopped creating, it was incredible watching her become the artist that she is today and travelling the world teaching.  I certainly was at the right place and the right time to get started and catch the bug.

Hence this email, I would love a quilt.  I  have never had one made for me and it would give me great pleasure to receive one.  I have actually been going around camp admiring those who have chosen to put theirs on display.  The majority of quilts that are here have been squirreled away into personal spaces, so I have not seen them all.  But I will make it my mission to view as many as possible.  I really am experiencing my own private quilt show - what fun.

I hope that is enough to go by, at the moment I am waiting for my trunk to arrive. In that I have some patches for a Pam Holland inspired fairy quilt which needs much hand sewing to embellish.  I cant wait, this UFO must be finished in 2014.

I will keep my fingers crossed.

Thanking you in advance,

And another email to me from the same person in reply to one I sent her..

Hi again Jan-Maree, 

The impact your group is having is just incredible.  I have my little mission to ask everyone  I meet if they have a quilt.  It is just amazing seeing grown men melt as they talk about "their" quilt.  The disbelief they have of a group of caring people actually taking the time and effort about them and to put so much work into an item blows them away and that they cannot believe that you ask for nothing for in return.  I met a guy only  a couple of days ago who said that he only had a laundry bag now, I asked him why?  He told me that he received a Star Wars quilt and it was just brilliant.  He was showing it off, when his mate begged to have it as he was such a big stat wars fan.  He did not have the heart to say no and passed it over.  He found great pleasure in giving too.  The impact on morale is just beautiful.  The women are just a grateful and gracious too.  The laundry bags are all being used and it seems to be a fashion statement for some.  Its nice to see them sitting on top of the washing machines to mark which tub has their items. 

I wish I could share some of these messages in their entirety, especially some of the thank you messages received, many of which are forwarded to me by other Aussie Hero Friends.  It is lovely  read them and many of them share personal stories about their families and explain a little about what they do on the job where they can.  To those of you who forward your messages to me to share, thank you so much.  It really makes my day and just as I am sure they lift your spirits and encourage you to sew some more, they do the same for me.   Additionally  sharing your messages with the other Aussie Hero Friends is encouraging for all.  If you are new to Aussie Heroes and you hear from your recipient, at the very least could you please let me know your parcel has been received so that I can mark it of and if you are happy to forward the thank you message you receive to enable me to share it that would be appreciated by all.

One final reminder that we have sewing day at my home on Tuesday this week.  BYO Sewing machine and Lunch.  I will provide tea and coffee.  We start at 10am and if you need the address please email me (friendsofAHQ@gmail.com) or PM me on facebook.  All welcome!

Till next time.....................keep spreading the word and happy stitching!  JMxx