noelle o designs

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Big Rock Candy Mountain Quilt- quilt piecing triangles

photo 2Here is my fabric interpretation of the painting ‘Big Rock Candy Mountain’ by Colt Bowden. We’ve been locked into an artist trade for years and I’m finally coming through on my end of the bargain.
big rock candy mountain by Colt BowdenHere is the original painting and inspiration- Big Rock Candy Mountain by Colt Bowden, painted for Summit in Eden Utah.  In case you’re not aware, Summit is a residential artists community designed with the vision of creating an epicenter of innovation in the heart of the Wasatch Mountains.

photo 1It’s been a very experimental and frustrating piecing process, in quilt piecing triangles, I’ve been making it up as I go along. But like any challenge, if you keep working at it, it becomes easier as you go and hopefully you learn something along the way.

triangle mountain quiltHere is the mountain, finally all pieced, with a faint chalk outline of where to cut out for the final mountain shape. It’s about 5 feet tall and 34 inches wide at the bottom.

triangles from the backYou can see the freestyle, experimental piecework from the back, some seams match and have a small edge and other seams have quite a bit of extra on the back. For the most part, this doesn’t matter. When a dark fabric could be seen through onto the right side of a light colored fabric, I made sure to trim the darker fabric in the back.

mountain quilt top detailThe snow capped top of the mountain was challenging to put together. Mainly because it took reversing the triangles from facing inward in ‘starburst’ patterns method to a new method of triangles facing downward with their pointy ends, I wasn’t sure I would pull it off at first. After picking out many seams as I went along, I finally got the snow angles right.

photo 3I don’t think I could have finished this mountain if I didn’t love it so much. It’s been so inspiring. I feel like it’s opened up a whole new world of thinking when it comes to colors, solid fabrics and even the piecing of triangles of fabric in such a unconventional way.
photo 4The background is underway, here’s a possibility. Plain fabrics in solid colors, like the ones in the mountain, set in gradation, to follow the layout of the painting. I do like the dark colors as a background, it helps the mountain stand out in the foreground. But, as I searched for background fabrics, I think I found a better idea:

mountain quiltThese fabrics are mainly solid in color, but with a slightly variegated aspect to them. All the colors I needed were available- bonus.

photo 2The subtle difference in the solids of the mountain fabrics and the ‘shadow play’ background fabrics should be small but significant to the end result.  I can’t wait to see the background in place. Stay tuned.

Take a look at the finished quilt here.

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