Alice's Tea Party

We've added another quilt to the page of raffle quilts.

Alice's Tea Party was Springwood Community Quilt Show's raffle quilt for 2008.

Designed by Blue Mountains quilter Lynne Alchin, Alice's Tea Party takes its inspiration from the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. Fun applique designs and sweet stitches perfectly capture the whimsical tale from Alice in Wonderland. Don't you just love that polka dot teapot?

This beautiful quilt is a feast of festive colours and delicious blocks of cakes and flowers...

a tower of tea cups!

This jug would brighten up any table with it's beautiful flowery pattern. 

Alice's Tea Party won 1st prize in the Group category at the 2008 Sydney Quilt Show.

Very sadly this beautiful quilt was destroyed in the October 2013 Fires in Winmalee, Blue Mountains. These were devastating fires that destroyed many homes, but thanks to the Blue Mountains Rural Fire Service, who is our designated charity, no lives were lost. 

Linking up to the Blogger's Quilt Festival,  a fun event where you see all types of quilts from all around the world.  You can see our other beautiful quilt entry in the festival, Homage here. 

Homage, a raffle quilt.

It's Bloggers Quilt Festival time, what a great excuse to revisit a raffle quilts from the past. Let's travel back to 2013 to see the Springwood Quilt Show's raffle quilt, Homage. 

This beautiful quilt gained the name Homage as a tribute to the early patchwork pioneers of Australia and also a commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the crossing of the Blue Mountains, a major, and important achievement in the settlement of Australia.

Homage started with the committee member sharing fabrics from their stashes. This ensured an even mix of colours and prints whilst introducing variety. It was great helping each other pick fun fabric combinations. Then it was a matter of starting to cut out the shapes and english paper piecing the blocks. 

Each member had approx 20 hexies to piece as homework. 

By the next meeting the hexies were ready to lay out. As you can see they looked wonderful together. There was lots of oohhing and ahhing over the different hexies, it was like an I-spy of pretty fabrics and clever piecing.

Marilyn and Moira carefully measuring the center so the John Hewson panel is centered properly.

The committee hard at work piecing the quilt top.

And it came together perfectly. Susie Anderson added a whole other layer of beauty with her amazing quilting. 

Homage was much admired and was a very popular raffle quilt at the 2013 Springwood Community Quilt Show. 

And then the cherry on the cake was the wonderful news that it won First Place for Group Quilts category at the Quilters Guild of NSW Quilt Show in Sydney. 

To see more of the Springwood Community Quilt Show raffle quilts go to our raffle quilts page at the top of the page.

And for a past Bloggers Quilt Festival entry of a different type of quilt, read about Mountain Magic here

Bloggers Quilt Festival - Fall 2010 , Mountain Magic

Our entry for the the Bloggers Quilt Festival is our Springwood Community Quilt Show Raffle quilt. It's only been finished for a few weeks so this is it's first outing. Thanks to David Stott for this wonderful photo that will be the publicity photo for magazine articles and flyers.

Mountain Magic is a pictorial quilt depicting the Three Sisters Rock formation, the Blue Mountains' most well known and popular tourist attraction at Echo Point, Katoomba, Australia.

Here's a photo of its namesake.

The quilt was designed by Petal Davies, a local quilt and wearable art teacher, although assembly has been a group effort by members of the Show commitee. I think we've all learnt some clever tricks along the way.

There's a variety of materials and fabrics incorporated in the quilt. Some beautiful Jinny Beyer fabrics that were our prize for 1st place in the group category at the 2009 Sydney Quilt Show.

Furnishing fabrics were made into tree trunks. Those tree fern branches have wires in the spines so they can be manipulated into shape.

Layers of different shades of fine blue organza became the misty haze the Blue Mountains gets its name from.

Sunlight reflecting off the rocks was created with a gold ice cream wrappers.

Hospital grade plastic bags were used to construct the forest undergrowth.
Soon the quilt will begin it's tour to the many quilt shops throughout the Blue Mountains region so people can buy tickets for it's raffle at the 2011 Springwood Community Quilt Show held on the last weekend of April.

A super big Thank You to Amy for organising the Bloggers Quilt Festival. Make sure you visit some of the other amazing quilts and wonderful stories about them. All you need is a delicious devonshire tea and it's like being at the Springwood Community Quilt Show.