Photographs – Lyn Smith
The Bushfire Blocks project
In March 2022, WOOEE visited a very moving exhibition at the Moruya Mechanics Hall.
On exhibition were a selection of 30 handmade quilts produced for an international quilting campaign, the Bushfire Blocks project; the quilts are part of 800 blankets created over Covid lockdown, for bushfire-affected families and were made by quilters and quilting guilds around the world.
Stitched with love and care, almost 15,000 square patches were donated to the Wollongong Modern Quilt Guild which put out the call for the project, as a way of showing support for those affected by the Spring-Summer 2019-20 fires.
Poignantly it was the first and last showing of the quilts – here in Moruya.
One hundred quilts will now be gifted to bushfire affected families, who are registered clinets of the Eurobodalla Bushfire Recovery Support Service. The exhibition was oraganised by the support service in partnership with the Guild.
Sally Turner who has helped coordinate the campaign- which has met with such overwhelming responses from overseas quilters, – shared some of the touching facets of the project in an interview with ABC media.
“I would be reading stories of how people relived their loss if they’d been through a wildfire in California or Canada,” she said
“It was like a healing process for them to repay the kindness that was shown to them in their time of need.”
‘Wollongong Modern Quilt Guild’s Sally Turner has been coordinating what has become an international campaign to make quilts for bushfire-affected families’.
Climate – The fabric upon which nature rests.
The foundation that our lives depend upon.
WOOEE March 2022
