Finding My Way In The Mountains
This quilt began about 6 months before a single stitch was sewn.
I saw an amazing New York Beauty quilt by Chris Jurd in a quilt show and it stopped me in its tracks. In the following weeks it seemed her quilts started popping up everywhere, in magazines, even old ones from the library! One afternoon I popped into my local quilt shop, The Quilt Smith and they'd just posted classes for classes with Chris to make her Mariners Mediallian. I was first on the list.
The class was months away and in the meantime Gbf & I made the big decision to change our lifestyle from Inner City Sydneyites to being Blue Mountains country folk.We timed the move for just after my long awaited class, there was no way I was going to miss it!
The class was great, my first attempt at foundation piecing. It takes a few goes to learn to think upside down and back to front, and to properly sew on the lines, oops, but I managed to go home with the center mostly finished.
I'm the 2nd on the left with the stripey tshirt and big smile
This is the really cool part - It turned out Chris is a Blue Mountains local and taught at the closest quilt shop to where we were moving to. How's that for fate!! Definitely meant to be!! I turned up to the next class there and continued making my quilt. And we haven't looked back, I follow her around like a stalker and she continually inspires me with her amazing quilts and makes me laugh with her great sense of humour.
The quilt waited patiently for nearly 3 years for me to hand quilt it...if only I had the time!! It would still be waiting if I didn't have the good sense to take it to my wonderful long arm quilter Tania Croft who did her usual magic. I wish I could photograph the quilting better.Tania's put feathered rings in the borders, little loopy frills in the triangles, echoed the mini dresdans... it's all wonderful and so perfect.
So here it is... the quilt I started in Sydney and finished in the Blue Mountains... This is the part where you get lots of photos!!!
Pretty peachy fabric by Martha Negley for the backing .
The photos were taken in the gardens of The Norman Lindsay Gallery. Gbf and I acted like we were on a covert operation as we snuck around taking our photos. tee hee... who knows where we'll pop up next...