By GEORGIA WESTGARTH
THE Cranbourne Uniting Patchworkers along with the St John’s Anglican Quilters have created more than just a quilt in honour of this year’s Anzac Centenary.
The piece of community artwork is four metres wide by two and half metres deep and with 4888 two inch squares making up the Gallipoli landscape, the statement quilt has been a long time coming.
“I call it a vision I had in August 2013 – but I knew I couldn’t do it by myself and with enough interest we could create the Combined Cranbourne Quilters,” Cranbourne Uniting Church priest and quilt designer Wendy Snook said.
With more than a year’s worth of planning, collecting, painting, sewing and cutting, the banner size quilt has jaws dropping.
The team of 10 contributors used Derwent Inktense pencils and painted many of the tiny squares themselves.
“It has been a bonding and learning experience with the group of ladies, many of whom hadn’t used fabric like paint before using the water colour technique and they can now use it themselves in the future,” the Reverend Snook said.
The intricate and mesmerising quilt will be toured around Victorian RSLs and taken to Perth in July for a national assembly at the University of Western Australia.
With the Cranbourne cenotaph printed onto fabric and stitched into the design, the quilt is as beautiful as it is meaningful with small crosses stitched into the landscape in honour of fallen soldiers.
“The quilt is quite significant, a lot of my congregation were not as aware of some of the stories from the war and the quilt helps to bring the past into the present,” she said.
The design of the banner-like quilt includes a silhouette of a bugler at sunrise and a soldier at sunset, symbolising the then and now, as the quilt reads ‘1915 Gallipoli 2015’.
Reverend Snook said she would like the quilt to become a talking point for people to take the initiative to learn about their own families’ stories and the history of the war.
“My hope is that we learn from the past and never repeat it, if we remember it so we don’t do it again, we’ve certainly achieved something,” she said.
The bespoke community art piece is set to take its home at the Dandenong Cranbourne RSL and Reverend Snook said she is very pleased with the response she has received.
