Quiltsy Cares : Stephanie Hateley of Steph's Quilts

Our featured quilter today is Stephanie Hateley of Steph's Quilts 
Stephanie lives in beautiful Port Stevens in NSW, Australia. She hopes to move to Tasmania soon.

I love quilting after 'discovering' it when I made my first quilt for my son's wedding 4 years ago. That was a queen-size quilt made using the 'quilt as you go' method on a very basic sewing machine. I was hooked and most days will find me in my sewing room making my next creation.  I seldom follow a pattern and enjoy making one of a kind quilts using a different design for each one. I love experimenting. My latest craze is making scrappy quilts and I've just finished organising all my scraps ready for the next one. My favourite scrappy quilt sold last month, so I'm now making another, this one I might keep for myself! I also love making table runners and baby quilts. I joined Quiltsy Team at the end of 2014.

Charity: Lala Salama .. the 100 Quilt Project
The aim for this project is to provide a special quilt for every child's bed in the new Bethany Kids Pediatric Wing at AIC Kijabe Hospital in Kijabe, Kenya. This hospital will serve vulnerable children all over East Africa with medical and surgical conditions, especially Spina Bifida and birth defects.
The theme for the wards is "Islands of Hope." They wanted to create a feeling of comfort, encouragement and hope in the wards with these quilts. 

I have been following the arrival of the quilts via Facebook from all over the world. So many designs, and now they are on the beds and the children are coming in to the hospital.. It's fantastic to see my quilt on one of the beds. The first photo is of some of the quilts, mine is 3rd down on the left. The 2nd photo is of my quilt, the 3rd photo is of a ward just after it opened in January with the first patients and a quilt on every bed

Their FB page link is lalasalama100quilts/timeline
They are now trying to get another 100 quilts so that each bed has a change for when they need to be laundered.
The charity is special to me because the children are so vunerable in a poor country and now they can get help and in a bright and loving environment. Each quilt is labelled with a message of love from all over the world.  One of the doctors there is also a friend of a friend of mine at my church; they were missionaries together in Papua New Guinea for a while.  



 Guest Blogger
Carol Ann Johnston
MooseCarolQuilts 

 

Quiltsy Cares: Featuring Stephanie Hateley of StephsQuilts

Stephanie's charity is Elim Kids. Stephanie's friends,  Sam and Julie, both doctors, started this organisation.  I asked Stephanie what makes this charity special to her. She answered, "Sam and Julie spent a few years in China setting it up, training and educating the Chinese doctors, government agencies, and orphanages about HIV. They adopted one of the Chinese HIV orphans, Maggie, into their family where they already have two sons.  Maggie is adorable and so healthy now. They are a wonderful family who act out the Christian faith in amazing ways. Sam and Julie started a foster home in China to house some of the orphans with HIV that they managed to get permission to remove from orphanages. At the moment there are 6 children in the home being cared for by wonderful Chinese Christian women, who are often ostracised for their work due to the fear of Aids and HIV."

Stephanie is donating a quilt for each of the orphans in that home and when they are adopted they can take their special quilt with them. Quite a few have already been adopted, some to the USA, some to Australia.

Pictured at right is David, a young boy who has just been fostered and will leave the hospital soon. Sadly, David may lose both of his feet due to gangrene brought on by no heating in the hospital. David will receive the blue patchwork quilt pictured below.

So far Stephanie has made a quilt for the baby (not pictured here)  and two girls, seen in the picture below, sleeping with their quilts. One of them has her quilt folded up under her head. Apparently they thought the quilts were too grand for the bed and walked around the apartment all day with their quilts draped around them when they first received them. Stephanie has two more boy quilts to go.            

Stephanie has been quilting for over 3 years and really enjoys making baby quilts and table runners. She lives in Anna Bay, a part of Australia called Port Stephens in New South Wales about a 2 ½ hour drive north of Sydney on the coast.

An accomplished quilter, Stephanie has been invited to have her quilt, Butterfly Garden, appear in the Australian Magazine, Homemade, later in the year, quite an honour!



Social Media Links:
Elim Kids

You can find Stephanie here:
Etsy
Facebook
Pinterest
Steph's Blog

Quiltsy Cares Charity Quilts Stephanie Hateley 3-17-15

Today's Quiltsy Cares spotlight is on Stephanie Hateley. Stephanie is donating her quilt to the  Newcastle Mater Mental Health Hospital – their craft stall to raise funds for the mental health section, especially the children’s ward. She explained that when hospitals in Australia hold fundraisers the money all goes to the medical, surgical and children’s hospitals, but none is funnelled through to the mental health side, they are the ‘poor’ cousins, so all the money raised from the charity/craft stall is given to the mental health section and is used to buy items for therapy, play,  books, etc. for the inpatients to use while in hospital. I used to be a psychiatric nurse for many years so I can understand their needs. Robyn, from Black Tulip Quilts, is the co-ordinator for this and comes to the craft group to collect all the items as they are ready.

Stephanie donated a blue and white tall ships embroidered table runner. She also started a craft group at her church that donate small and large quilted items and lots of other things, like knitted and crocheted items, on a regular basis. She also donates some items from her shop when they are sitting there for a while and they always sell fast on their stall.

Stephanie lives in Anna Bay, paradise! A part of Australia called Port Stephens in New South Wales about a 2 ½ hour drive north of Sydney on the coast. She has been quilting just over 3 years and has been a member of Quiltsy for 6 months.

To learn more about Stephanie:

www.facebook.com/StephsQuilts
https://www.pinterest.com/shateley/
http://stephsquilts.blogspot.com.au/

Written by Pat Young of PatsPassionQuilteds, Quiltsy Team member since May 2011

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