Day 56

A new project! Doesn't every crafter love a new project?

I attended Korowa Church of England Girls' Grammar School (now Korowa Anglican Girls' School) in Melbourne. I loved my seven years there. Next year the school will be celebrating its 120th anniversary and as part of the celebrations they are having a quilt challenge. The challenge part is to include a piece of summer unform fabric in the quilt - from any era. Naturally I chose the fabric from my era, the 1970s. The quilt also needs to be pertinent to the school in some way.

For several days I deliberated over the design before coming up with a perfect solution. In 1980 when I was in Form 6 (Year 12) we were all prefects and we were given the privilege of a common room where we could chill out, study, drink coffee (and some illicit activities as well I suppose). Every year level would contribute something to the improvement of the common room. We felt the room was drab and needed brightening so as true children of the '70s we decided to paint a mural on the large blank grey wall at one end. A competition was devised to find a design. Naturally I entered. My design was chosen to go on the wall. A friend of mine had a father who worked for Dulux and he generously donated the paints we needed and with a lot of hard work by a few good people the wall was painted. It looked great. Sadly, a few years later the building was extended to provide more facilities for the students and the mural was knocked down.

So what better idea than to recreate the mural as a quilt in memory of the short time it was there as part of the school. From a small 10cm square photo of the incomplete mural I drew up the pattern. First I had to stick several large pieces of paper together to create my blank canvas, about 57" square. My husband and daughter held string across the diagonal so that I could follow it with my ruler and draw in the straight lines to form the rainbow. Then it was simple to fill in the rest of the pattern. After the drawing was completed I cut it all into the various pattern pieces. Using these pieces I calculated how much fabric I needed and wrote up my shopping list. Don't you love fabric shopping lists!?

Shopping tomorrow. Wahoo.