Fonta Flora Quilt

The ladies I quilt with here in Morganton have been commissioned to make a quilt for Fonta Flora Brewery.  This is a brewery here in downtown Morganton and one of the quilters knows some of the owners so that is how the contact was made. The owners wished to have a quilt representation of their logo so we presented them with an idea and they gave us the go-ahead. 

Some background history.......... Lake James is located in western Burke County and when it was made back in the 1920's there was a small community located in the area. Fonta Flora was the name of that community and it was flooded in the process of making the lake so it's remnants are still at the bottom of the lake.  So this is the namesake of the brewery and the inspiration of the logo details.
This quilt is roughly 8 feet by 6 feet in size. It is made of all batiks, a special type of dyed fabric. We love all the fabrics because they give the quilt such movement. We cut out a variety of colored houses and appliqued all of them; cut out all the lettering and appliqued them also. Bias tape was made to construct all the waves at the top. The borders are all pieced strips which tie into the waves on top.
One of the ladies in our group is a co-owner of a long arm quilting machine so her business did all the quilting.  When the machine quilting was finished we all got together and hand sewed the binding on.

This quilt is hung in the brewery on an old red brick wall.  We are very pleased with the results.
On February 9th all of the ladies who worked on the quilt went to the brewery to see it hanging. 

Sorry for the dark pictures....it is in a brewery after all.  Joan, the lady in orange in the picture above is the oldest person to work on the quilt, at 83, and she actually came in 2nd for the number of hours logged on this quilt.  She is like a machine and her house is covered in quilts.  She made the label which will hang next to the quilt.  Overall, we are all pleased with the process.  Some new friendships were forged in the process as not all of us knew each other at the beginning of this process.