Last meeting

SHOW BAGS
Big news at this months meeting, our first shopping tote bag arrived. We have ordered 500. Going by the general response, they may end up a collector’s item! The following year we will use a different colour for the bag, so make sure you pick one up as you enter the show or from any of the traders stalls in the hall, only $2 each.

Scenes from the last meeting and a few notes from Vicki our publicity officer.

Christmas and the holidays are well behind us now. As February looms, so does the first Quilt Show meeting for the year. A few members of the committee were unable to attend due to teaching, work and family commitments. None the less we soldier on. Lots to discuss and some final decisions to be made. Our secretary, Suzanne takes notes throughout the meeting and sends them to all members within the week as the official minutes.

HIGHWAY BANNERS
The news doesn’t stop there. This year we have been fortunate enough to have three more roadside banners made. We have been waiting on permission from RTA for a spare bridge over the Great Western Highway to be able to hang them. Starting from 4th April 2011 you should see a banner or two around. Very distinctive is our new Show logo. A schoolhouse block! A lot of thought went into it, and as one committee member pointed out, we have been holding the Quilt Show at a school for six years, why look any further!! How appropriate! The colour is Shiraz.
ENTRY FORMS
Emails will be sent out shortly with the entry form attached. Entry forms will also be distributed at local patchwork shops. If your quilt isn’t quite finished, don’t despair, get the entry form to us and you still have a small amount of time to finish. Everyone loves to see quilts. Large and small. Those with a story attached, from pictorial to the classic.

We try to squeeze in 150 – 200 quilts. So if you are entering more than one quilt, read the entry form carefully, as you have the choice of which ones get to be exhibited, if we are in the position of receiving too many. Keeping the show to a certain number of quilts, allows an adequate size of space for the traders, and plenty of space in between the rows of quilts for us admirers to stand back and admire. This also allows us camera happy people to take snaps of our favourites.

BOOK MARKS/FLYERS
Today we were very pleased to have our 2011 Quilt Show book marks from the printers.
Thanks to Petal’s colourful raffle quilt, this year they will certainly stand out at all the usual venues. The decision to promote the Springwood Quilt Show using bookmarks was decided on a few years back as a handy item for us girls to have in our diaries, handbags or on the fridge. Collect one for yourself and a friend from your local patchwork shop, library, selected shops and tourist information centre. If you know of a venue we may have missed, let us know, by clicking on the email icon, we would love to hear from you.

It just wouldn’t be a meeting without the supper! Suzie did a splendid job and to prove we do watch what we eat, a small slice of cake was left. Nice plate Suzie!

Keep an eye on our blog with a count down to show time!!!

The raffle quilt Mountain Magic pictured above and designed by Petal Davies has started it's journey around the shops. Here is your chance to buy a ticket in this beautiful piece - it's at
Michelle Marvig's Patchwork Heart in Penrith at the moment. Tickets are $2 each and the proceeds go to Springwood High School and our local RFS group.
2nd prize in the raffle is a Bernina sewing machine kindly donated by The Stitching Post in Katoomba - gotta be in it to win it as they say!
Now check this out - handy carry bags with our show logo on the front. Available at the show for $2 from all stallholders so you can cart all those goodies you've bought around in style.

We have also received our bookmark flyers advertising the show and these will be available in the near future at a quilt shop near you. It gives details of the opening hours and includes a map on the reverse to help you find us.

Entry forms for the show will be available soon from local quilt shops so keep your eyes peeled if you'd like to display your quilting efforts.

We encourage all local quilters to enter something in this community event. It's not a juried show but there are viewers choice prizes and lots of other things like lucky door prizes each day.

There'll be more news about the show more frequently now that there are only 97 days to go!! The counter at the top takes a little while to load but it will keep us all on our toes I can tell you.

So keep us in your favourites and we'll keep you informed about what's happening as soon as we can.

Patching with Petal

I'd like to formally introduce you to Petal Davies of Patching with Petal. A quilter, wearable art artist, a very popular teacher and the designer for the 2011 Springwood High School Community Quilt Show Raffle quilt, Mountain Magic. She has kindly answered some questions for us.

How did you become a quilter and how did you learn to quilt?

After being a dressmaker for 20 or more years, and making clothes for children out of combining different fabrics and appliquéing motifs on them, I decided the next step was to apply the same techniques to quilts.

I had previously bought fabric with designs on them that I could quilt around. This taught me a lot about the “do’s and don’ts” of quilting. I then attended a workshop to see if I was missing out on techniques.

At what point did you start becoming interested in different techniques and making art quilts?

Approximately 10 or 11 years ago, I did a course with Carol Wilkes at Fibre Forum. That opened up a whole new world, and I continued to attend forum each year and learnt a lot. Although, I don’t think my quilts are “art”, more pictorial, combined with the traditional. I also create “wearable” wearable art clothes.

How did you come up with the idea for the 2011 raffle quilt?

I had done the three sisters before in daytime colours and wanted to see them in sunset colours. As we live in the Blue Mountains and this is a mountain quilt show, I thought them appropriate.

Can you describe to us your design process?

This started with a background of mountains and the valley behind the sisters. Then the sisters [the girls, as I refer to them] were made as a separate unit. As I had help from some traditional quilters, I devised the 4-side triangle block so they could piece it together, for the background and for the borders.

Then the appliques were made to embellish the quilt.

You use such interesting fabrics [and ice cream wrappers]. Can you tell us about those?

I very much have recycled fabrics all my life. As long as the quality, colour and texture are what I want, then I use them, and that includes the ice cream wrappers.

Thank you Petal!

If you've got any questions to ask Petal just leave a comment or you can always leave a comment even if you don't have a question. Just say hello!