What's Next

Once that quilt was mended, I thought I'd make another book, having set aside supplies for several different ones. But instead, there was some howling from the closet, a "wait a minute, you've been thinking about something else for awhile and what you need is in here" I couldn't resist. The Peace quilt construction left me with negative pieces of the design with fusible on the back. I couldn't toss them - some very big pieces there - and I couldn't quite bring myself to think in terms of cutting them up for some other sort of applique piece. I wanted to make a second quilt using a piece of fabric I knew lurked in this footlocker in the closet, itself lurking under boxes of my framed artwork. I had no idea what a Pandora's Box I was about to unearth and open.

When I went away to college in the 70's, pretty much everyone had some sort of footlocker in their dorm room and mine was this red, white and blue version. After college I hung on to it, using it mostly (if I remember correctly) to store my needlecraft supplies like yarns and cross-stitch cloth and rug hooking supplies and the like. At some point, I started storing fabric in it, and as I transitioned from garment making to quilting, the fabric was more likely to be long lengths of cotton fabric that I didn't want a lot of creases in. But there was also some garment fabric in there, corduroys and even some silks. Underneath this stack, that dark blue rectangle on the right, is actually some corduroy my mother-in-law passed on to me when she gave up on sewing. I'd forgotten it was in there, and forgotten as well why these particular fabrics are stored away here. Peeking out around the other two corners on the right is major yardage of black fabric bought at that same quilt shop I taught at that left that quilt top smelling like cigarette smoke. As I needed black fabric, I'd get it out and cut off a piece. I haven't had to do that for a long time and now I'm wondering if it too harbors some smoke odors.

Here's another layer - a batik, one of my hand-dyes, and a bold contemporary fabric that I bought a lot of because I was so taken with it and it was on sale. I remember my husband asking what I would do with it, and replying that I didn't know, but if nothing else it could be backing. That was some time in the late 90's, when Susan Stein had a quilt shop in the Minneapolis MN area. I was directed there by someone who said I could find Cherrywood Hand-dyes there, and I was overwhelmed by what Susan was carrying - nothing like the usual dark and woodsy Thimbleberries-like quilt fabric popular at that time. Besides the hand-dyes, she carried such bright and modern contemporary fabrics, maybe the only such shop in that part of the country to do so. I was smitten. (And the hand-dyes were instrumental in my friend Judi and I experimenting and eventually selling our own line of hand-dyes.) Once I moved closer to that area, I visited her shop several times, bringing home this big piece that I've never found a home for yet. Perhaps I put these three pieces aside with the thought they could be used together.

This grouping kind of puzzles me. Again, no real recollection of why these ended up in the footlocker. I'm thinking these were in one of those Keepsake Quilting fabric of the month club offerings which in itself was reason for me to keep them together. Note my tendency to end up with multiple colorways of a print.There is an invoice with them showing I bought more yardage of  at least one of them - a lot more.

And here it is, 2 yards of the crane fabric that went with this oriental collection and that I've been thinking about ever since I set aside these negative leftover pieces for a second Peace quilt. Yes, I think it will do nicely since I think it is safe to say I'll never actually make the kimono-style jacket I originally bought this sateen yardage for. I'd forgotten about that leafy tan border running along the selvages which is giving me ideas for thread colors. Yeah, just a little bit excited about this.

But goodness, as I look at the fabric pulled from that footlocker, and the fabric still lurking in it that hasn't seen the light of day for perhaps years, my overriding thought is that I have too much fabric!