5 minute read
QUILT ARTIST
In the early years of The Nest Community, volunteers ran a variety of workshops to teach handmade living practices Indigo dying, kokedama hanging plants and papermaking, as well as traditional knitting, crochet and sewing.
As co-founder of the newly incorporated Nest Community Inc, Roz Holt was running an upcycling workshop, when she met Sharon as a participant During the workshop Roz shared her vision for The Nest and Sharon recollects that she was ‘captured by Roz’s vision’.
“Wow, this is incredible. How do women create these things?”
Not long after, Sharon responded to the call for volunteers and has been part of the organisation for nearly seven years.
“It was interesting to see the mechanics of it all when I started When we were in the house at Everton Park, we used to bring out the crates of things for sale onto the verandah If we made $25-$30 in sales we thought we’d had a pretty good morning Gladys [Roz’s mother] used to count the takings and would be pretty excited at those amounts.”
Growing up, Sharon’s mother and sister made the family’s clothes, a tradition Sharon continued with her own children.
Having learnt her skills from her mother and sister, Sharon was particularly keen to be involved with the Exchange Project in 2021, to pilot our mentoring program for vulnerable girls.
“Like everyone else who has mentored for the Exchange Project, I was very impressed with the young girls and how they developed confidence and skills.”
When asked, Sharon says that embroidery is her craft of choice and describes herself as a self-taught quilter.
“I was never a quilter but planned to learn when I retired. Then, when I got to my 40s, my friends started saying ‘why don’t you just learn now’. I’m not a traditional quilter. I use things like cutwork linen and doilies rather than haberdashery fabrics. I love the upholstery remnants and swatches to make into fabric collage quilts.”
For Sharon the attraction of collage quilting is that you don’t need very big pieces of fabric - it’s the ultimate scrapbusting project regardless of pattern or colour.
“You’d be surprised. Sometimes a fabric with a cactus pattern might make a great eyebrow and you only need a piece as big as your palm!”
The process of collage quilting is akin to painting with fabrics where you are layering and adding wadding to create dimension.
When Sharon embarked on reproducing [with the artist’s permission] a portrait by Mark Norval she would often take a photo in sepia to check that each piece had the right value and ‘popped’ where it needed to.
“I thought, I have to get the eyes and nose right before I can do anything else. It took me three attempts on the nose!”
The process is painstaking and took Sharon 12 months to complete. When you see the finished work (measuring one metre square), you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a painting and even the artist, Mark Norval was impressed.
In 2021 the quilt won Queensland Quilters’ second top prize, The Bernina Amateur Award.
Sharon volunteers on Fridays and is one of our experts that maintains our stock of quilting fabrics In addition to her shift, she takes home crates of donated quilting fabric to prepare it for sale.
“I probably spend about six hours a week sorting and measuring at home. The crates have already been presorted at the donations table, then I take them home, do another sort, measure and price them.”
While looking at fabric is one of her favourite things to do, people remain the primary reason Sharon volunteers.
“I love connecting with the other women, their experience and life, what they make, what they are involved in. I love seeing the customers excited about what they’re buying to make.”
It’s incredible to think that just seven years ago, it was just a few crates of reclaimed textile resources Since relocating to Brendale in 2023, The Nest Haberdashery now processes over 5000 litres of textiles each week and attracts customers from all over Australia.
“We’ve even had a customer from New York buying doilies to take home and use in projects.”
Just as Sharon uncovered her own hidden talent for quilting, it’s also possible to uncover hidden talent, right here in Brisbane’s maker community.
“We had a customer who was part of the Royal School of Needlework based at Hampton Court Palace and had been part of the team who worked on Charles and Camilla’s coronation gowns. She had relocated back to Australia and now lives on the Northside.”
