Bulli Corner Quilters have raised more than $14,000 for charity while celebrating their 20th anniversary at the 2024 Quilt and Flower Show.

This year’s show at Bulli’s Northern Illawarra Uniting Church on October 11 and 12 set a new fundraising record. Money will be donated to Angel Flight, Royal Flying Doctor Service, bowel research at Wollongong Hospital, Bulli Men’s Shed, Need a Feed, Bulli's Uniting Church, and others.

The group's leader since 2002, Bev Burton celebrated the club’s emerald year by wearing green.

"The quilting group started because one of our ladies was very, very ill and we quickly made her a quilt while she was in hospital, just to give her comfort,” Bev says.

“People said, 'If you can make a quilt in that short time, you can teach it.' So we started teaching,

“Now we have a group of 40 to 50 women who come from all over – down past the other side of the lake, Campbelltown area, Moss Vale and the Southern Highlands, the Shire, all over.”

This year’s show included more than 75 quilts for sale and about 85 quilts on exhibition. The group also made 58 vases of flowers to display and welcomed 485 guests over two days.

“On average, the quilts take about two or three months to make,” Bev says.

“You can do a little one in a weekend though. Another one that’s a bit more difficult might take you six or 12 months.

“Really it takes as long as you want it to. For this year, personally, I'm on my 323rd quilt."

Local businesses were invited to host stalls and guests browsed a range of goods, from sewing supplies and fabrics to homemade gifts. Des, one of the stall holders on Saturday, said that her Bluey-themed dolls were particularly popular with this year’s crowd. 

Retailers present included longtime supporters My Sewing Supplies, Picton Patchwork, The Stitchers Cupboard and Thirroul Custom Quilting. 

"The variety of fabrics is amazing nowadays, it's beautiful,” Bev says.

“Of course, quilting itself started for necessity of warmth in the 1700s. Then in Queen Victoria’s day, the quilting was what they call ‘crazy quilting’, which was all slapped together and they did a lot of embroidery, because women were supposed to be decorative and not have much of a brain.

"Nowadays, you need a mathematical brain to work out the amount of material you need, the size of the squares and things to make them all fit neatly."

Group members display their quilts from the past year at each year’s show, with guest judges awarding prizes to the top three creations.

At the 2024 event, judges awarded Best in Show to Kerrie Metcalfe and Best Use of Colour to Christine Walker.

The judges also picked Kerrie Metcalfe as the winner of 2024’s Large Quilt category, while Irene Winter took first prize in the Small Quilt category. There were also Viewer’s Choice Awards and a Small Quilt Challenge, with the theme ‘Bulli’.

Judges awarded the challenge’s top prize to Christine Johnson.

Viewers Choice winners were: Christine Phillips (large quilt), Christine Walker (small) and Bev Burton (challenge).

The quilters are proud to donate thousands of dollars each year to charity.

"The idea I was brought up on is 'if you educate the girl, you educate the family. If you educate the boy, you only educate the man',” Bev says.

“That’s why we donate to charities to support women and children. We don't keep any of our money from the end of one year to the next, except for $200 to kick us off in the new year. The rest of that money will go to charities around our district.”

Bulli Corner Quilters will host a Quilt Sale on May 2, 2025, ahead of Mother’s Day. Next year’s Quilt and Flower Show is set for October 17 and 18, 2025.

"We've got people from all walks of life. Some people are lawyers or some people are doctors and they're all quilters,” Bev says.

"I'd probably be the oldest at 85. I would say the average age of the group is about 50 to 60, because they are the ones who have the time to do it.

"It is becoming a younger person thing. You can do it at any age, as long as you can use the sewing machine – or if you can't use the machine, you do it by hand.

Bulli Corner Quilters meet on the fourth Wednesday of every month from 9am at Bulli's Uniting Church.

"Everyone's welcome and we gravitate to new people, it doesn't matter if you've never sewn a stitch. When we all started we didn't know what we were doing but we soon learned,” Bev says.

“It's very calming. It's very restful and it's very friendly.”

To join Bulli Quilter’s Corner, go to www.niuchurch.org.au