Our members are involved in a number of charitable projects throughout the year. Have a look at a selection of our projects below:
2023 Wave Youth Quilt
20 ‘Hayling themed’ blocks were designed and stitched on a sunny day in May. These were stitched together to make a beautiful wall hanging for Hayling’s Wave Youth group to decorate their meeting space. Several members also made cushions for them. More details on how Wave support the young people of Hayling can be found here.
2022 Platinum Jubilee Quilt
To commemorate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, members were asked to make a block depicting some aspect of the Queen’s amazing 70 year reign. The blocks were joined together to make this fabulous red, white and blue quilt which is now hanging in the Community Centre for the whole community to enjoy.
2021 NHS Hearts for hope
Following on from an extraordinary year where NHS workers have really been tested to the limit, a request was put out nationally to make hearts for each member of staff in the UK working on ICU wards. Our ladies love a challenge and set about making beautiful hearts to be sent to our local hospital, QA. Further details can be found here
2021 ‘Bobby Buddies’ for Hampshire Police
This was a new project for us this year in partnership with Hampshire Constabulary to make knitted police teddy bears. The bears are given to children involved in domestic abuse and help break down the communication barrier and allow the children to talk. If you want to get involved, the pattern can be found here.
2021 Neonatal hats
In addition to our regular quilt making for the neonatal unit, our clever ladies knitted some beautiful neonatal hats – they’re so tiny!
2020 Hedgehog quilt for Hayling Hedgehog Rescue
Lockdown meant we couldn’t have our usual group sewing day for charity. However, not to be deterred, we were given the challenge to make our hedgehog themed blocks at home. Carol did an amazing job of putting all the blocks together to create a beautiful quilt. Well done to everyone involved in this lovely project.
2020 – Masks & Laundry Bags
Our lovely ladies answered the call to make masks for our community. Over 7000 were made in all different fantastic fabrics. In addition we made over 4000 laundry bags for NHS workers to put their uniforms in.
Neonatal Quilts for Queen Alexandra Hospital (annual project)
Our members lovingly make quilts for the neonatal unit at QA throughout the year.
If you would like to make a quilt, please note that QA have updated the size of quilt required (further updated Jan 2022).
The current size is 24″ x 34″, cotton fabric with wadding.
(Previously we made two different sizes, one without wadding as incubator covers)
Here are a selection of our latest quilts that have been donated.
2019 Quilt for Hayling Voluntary Services
This year we collaborated on one big fantastic raggy quilt which we gifted to the wonderful Hayling Voluntary Services. They are going to raffle it to help them with their fundraising.
2018 Christmas Stockings for the Elderly of Hayling
We braved the snow in March to come together to make 60 fantastic Christmas stockings. These will be given out (containing small gifts) to the elderly people of Hayling Island at a community Christmas lunch for those who would otherwise be alone on Christmas Day.
2017 – 70273 Project
This is a Worldwide collaborative art project commemorating the lives of the 70,273 physically and mentally disabled people murdered by German Nazis in 1940-41.
Each block is made with a white background and two red crosses (representing the medical notes and the crosses signed by doctors sealing the fate of one individual). These blocks are being sewn together into quilts to be displayed around the world. For more information, see www.the70273project.org
2017 Days for Girls
Days for Girls are a charity set up to help girls across the globe manage their monthly cycles and keep them in school rather than staying home for one week in four. Following a really informative evening from the charity about their work, our group spent a day making the D4G kits to be sent out to Africa.
To date, the charity has reached over one million women and girls in 116+ countries with D4G kits and menstrual health education. For more information, see www.daysforgirls.org
2017 Fiddle quilts for dementia & Quilts for the Women & Children’s refuge
Another fabulous day of quilting in what is becoming our annual charity ‘quiltathon’!
Our lovely ladies made some fabulous fiddle quilts to give to care homes for people with dementia as well as some beautiful quilts for our local Women and Children’s refuge.
All of our fabric is donated and it is amazing to see the varied and colourful creations that appear from a table full of fabric!
2016 Quilts for Kids
The charity quilting ‘marathon’ took place in February. Our challenge was to provide a quilt for every child in Hill Crest Care homes on Hayling. These children have few belongings of their own and we wanted to give them something snuggly to own. We had an extraordinary day of cutting, piecing and quilting. The result was over 30 beautiful, individual quilts which we handed over to Jubilee School where the children attend, as well as a lovely wall hanging for the school itself.
We have decided to keep this as an ongoing project to provide quilts as new children arrive. If you’d like to make a quilt, please make a single quilt either backed with fleece or make with wadding and backing in the traditional way. Most of the quilts were made with a 9-patch but any pattern, any fabric will do! The quilt will be given to a child aged between 6 and 18 years.
2015 ‘Big Pink Quilt In’ for Breast Cancer Care
Forty ladies had a fabulous day in February with pink fabric! We wanted to support this amazing charity and decided to pool our resources and make one ‘big pink quilt’ – 240 blocks were pieced to create a kingsize quilt. This was truly a team effort and the result was spectacular.
Raffle tickets were sold throughout the year with the winner picked in October – Breast Cancer Awareness month.
The grand total of monies raised was £2,425 which we were absolutely thrilled with. Thank you to everyone who helped make our quilt and to all the wonderful people who supported us and bought raffle tickets.
