Colourful quilts for charity

A group of Wimmera women will help brighten the lives of some of the state’s sickest children by joining forces to make colourful quilts.

Horsham Patchwork Quilters member Sue Ahern organised a quilt-making day in Horsham for the Very Snuggly Quilts program.

The program aims to provide quilts to bring comfort to sick children and their families.

“The quilting guilds in each state have a different charity and in Victoria it’s the Royal Children’s Hospital,” Mrs Ahern said.

“Victorian Quilters president Marie Lee coordinates the Very Snugly Quilts program and has a contract with the hospital to provide 120 quilts a month.

“The quilts only go to children who are critically ill and range from newborns to 18-year-olds.”

Mrs Ahern said almost 30 women attended a Very Snuggly Quilts day in Horsham. “The session was open to everyone, not just people from Horsham. We had ladies from Warracknabeal and Stawell and they weren’t all members of the quilting group,” she said.

“Marie came up from Melbourne and she also went to Kaniva the day before.

“It was a great day of friendship and fun, and it was productive for Marie.”

Mrs Ahern said she hoped to run annual or biannual Very Snuggly Quilt-making sessions in Horsham.

“I’m also hoping now that we’ve done this it will encourage people to make quilts for the program at home, year round,” she said.

“We can arrange for them to be delivered to Melbourne with people travelling down.”