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.

The Raffle Quilt is almost finished

We arrived on Sunday for our sewing day to find Petal has been very busy pulling the quilt together with her clever touches.

It now has a forest of tree ferns...
And a gum tree! This little cockatoo is just modeling for us. He's an old broach of Petals and he's just the right size as a trial. Petal will conjure up another one using fabric.
Misty clouds floating in the sky. This quilt really captures the essence of the mountains. It's perfectly named Mountain Magic, which is the theme for the 2011 show.
This mossy outcrop is the result of Erin's circle work at the last sewing day.
Some of the tree fern fronds are on wires for a 3D effect.
On Sunday we worked on the backing. No ordinary one fabric backing for this quilt! We're using our prize winning Jinny Beyer fabrics from our first place win in the Group Catogory in the 2009 Darling Harbour Show. These fabrics are so divine, the colours, the quality, the subtle patterns, love them!!

Here's Tania, Susie and Suzanne pondering placement.

So now it's just the backing, a few finishing bits on the front before it'll be quilted by Petal. The quilt then goes on a tour of several quilt shops throughout the region. We'll post the dates of the tour when we get them.

Besides preparing the raffle quilt, work and planning has started on signage, publicity, ideas for printing flyers and bookmarks, even organising tables and chairs has to be thought about. It's still quite a few months away but there's a lot to organise. Never a dull moment!

The More You Look the More You See

Last Sunday we met up at Petal's house to work on the raffle quilt. It really is a stunner!

As someone who tends to make up my quilts as I sew, I'm impressed at all the detailed planning and pinning that has gone into this quilt. There are so many small details that go together to make up the picture. It's truly a case of the more you look the more you see.

The blue sky is created with blue sheer fabrics over a browny khaki fabric. They add a sense of depth and create the misty look our mountain views are famous for.

Small touches of different textured fabrics and stitching add shadows and light.

The touches of gold are bits of recycled magnum wrappers!!!

More wonderful textures that look like moss.

The grey frame fabric was hand dyed by Petal. It shimmers as it draws the eye in, frames but dosen't compete.

The Jinny Beyer fabrics work really well. The square patches made up of odd quarters give a sense of movement reminding me of impressionist paintings.



Some of the faces behind the quilt...

Here's the quilt's designer Petal (right) and Chris discussing details.


Margaret was giving the task of sewing tree trunks. Note that she's sewing with 2 different colours of thread. One of Petal's clever tricks. The blended colours add interest. Just love those little details!!


Margaret's daughter Erin went round and round in circles- Literally!!! Sewing small circles onto a plastic that will be disolved leaving a pretty foliage, moss like textile.

Here's Petal again this time cutting little triangles out of green fabric strips.


Along with Tanya...


Creating green fronds.

To make tree ferns!!

There's still lots more to come!! So stay tuned!