A Slice of a Quiilter's life... Michele and Donna P

Time for another look into the lives of a couple of our quilters.  

This time Michele and Donna P.

First up, Michele...

I have been sewing for AHQ for a few years now. I have a granny flat for my sewing space so I can just leave a mess and close the door. This works well as life gets chaotic at times.

My week involves working in a company, I am one of the owners, between 1 and 3 days a week. This varies week to week as we are growing rapidly and my husband often works interstate so I sometimes have to run the office and local staff. 

I also look after my granddaughter every Wednesday. I have four adult children who live nearby so there is always someone dropping in for a cuppa. I volunteer at a costume hire shop a few hours repairing and making costumes when I'm not in the office extra days.

I am one of those people who need to have a tidy house before I can be creative. Fortunately this does not extend to the need to prepare food as anyone who knows me can attest. I try to keep my weekends free for family, friends and sewing and as Chris likes to cook it's a win win situation. He cooks the best roast potatoes every second Sunday night so if you're ever in Geelong stop by.

I fit in AHQ by scheduling in a weekend every couple of months to make a couple of quilts. I also do ad hoc machine embroidery for Jan-Maree when she has special requests. I am a jack of all trades, master of none. I do not posses the skill of a wordsmith like Jan-Maree but I enjoy the simple pleasure of creating something from a few scraps of fabric to express my feelings of gratitude to the men and women of our defence forces.

Shel

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and now for Donna P...

After reading the blog I thought I would send you an email about my average week. I have only been sewing for Aussie Hero Quilts for 7 months. In that time I have made 10 quilts and 5 laundry bags.

I am currently a Nurse Unit Manager (my usual job is a clinical nurse educator). My  morning starts at 6:50 am when my alarm goes off i start work at the hospital at 7am I usually leave work around 5pm I get home around 5:30. I work Monday to Friday.  On a Monday I come home and cook dinner or my husband will if he is on days off (He is a firefighter 2 day shifts 2 night shift then 4 off). Check what my 15 year old is up to. Then I sew until around 10pm. 

On a Tuesday, work is the same, when I get home dinner and then I do a load of uniform washing and then I sew until around 10 pm. 

Wednesday is a rush day get home at 5:30 do some quick dinner, Iron a Venture scout Uniform and drive my son to Ventures (I am also the secretary of the 1st Figtree scouts) I help organise and run activities  for scouts. Finish up a scouts and drive home around 9:30 then head to bed.

Thursday work as normal, dinner and you guessed it sew some more and do some ironing.

Friday work as normal, dinner and maybe sew or the kids might come down for the weekend. ( I have 2 stepdaughters, a daughter and a son, my son is the only child left at home. Oh and I have 2 grandchildren as well).

My weekend is full of sewing and designing. Sometimes I look after the grand kids on the weekend, I love that, my grandson is 5 1/2  and loves to watch me sew and finds pictures of things he would love grams to make. My grand daughter is 14 months old and loves to play with the scrap fabric. Sometimes I drive up and visit my mother or she will come to visit.

I love to sew and quilt. In the last 7 months I have also made a quilt for the hospital to raffle to raise money for Alzheimer's research, made one for my son's scout leader, one for a friends daughters 16th birthday, one for another friend, a dress for my daughters 21st, Christmas scrubs for the girls at work, Christmas dress up costumes for the other managers at work (2), a number of monkey dolls, a number of dresses for my grand daughter. I also knit and crochet and have made 3 cow girl out fits.

wow that sounds like a lot. But I love to keep busy and I enjoy every minute of it. My husband and son hover around on a Monday when the request list comes in, they look at it and come up with lots of ideas to help me plan the design, the last quilt I made was the Adventure Time quilt my son loves adventure time he was the technical adviser on this quilt making sure the colours were right. He was very happy with this quilt. When I make a quilt and laundry bag, I post the quilt in one box my husband posts the laundry bag in another and fills it with lots of goodies. When I have a request that is only a quilt he posts a box of just goodies he feels that he his doing his bit to say thank you to our Aussie heroes. I love that he does this but i don't think he understands that all the help he gives me, doing washing, cooking and cleaning lets me sew more quilts and laundry bags.

Like I said I am having  a break as my mother is having surgery and then I am heading to QLD to spend 3 weeks with my sister, I don't think I mentioned that I am taking my sewing machine as I am making my sisters wedding dress, 2 bridesmaid dresses, the flower girls dress and the page boys out fits while I am there. It will be fun as it is a country wedding and the brides maids dresses are made out of denim!

Take care and have a safe weekend.

Donna

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Thanks ladies. If anyone else wants to share a slice of their life please just email me. 

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

Jan-Maree xx