New Fabric

Thursday, I went for a drive through central and northeast Nebraska, stopping at eight different quilt shops along the way to pick up the free row-by-row patterns they are offering.  I took my camera along and snapped a number of photos of the countryside, which you can see here:  Quilt Shop Excursion

I bought a few pieces of fabric, most of which will be for gifts:

13 pieces of fabric

♫ ♪ Amazing Grace panel ♪ ♫

Amazing Grace coordinates

Children's panel

Backing for children's panel

Horses, with coordinating clouds and grass fabrics

Dogs and coordinating paw print fabric

Snowy owls

Tabs and Cording

Today I cut the binding for the Mosaic Lighthouse quilt.  The front and back of the binding are separate pieces, as the tabs and cords must be sewn into the outer seam of the binding.  I interfaced both sides.

Here are the first few inches of the edging:

Tabs for Mosaic Lighthouse Quilt Edge

The tabs are done -- 288 of them, a few less than I thought I'd cut, but probably a few more than I need, in any case.  There are four tabs of each color -- 72 colors.  Tomorrow I'll cut the binding and start attaching cording to tabs and tabs and cording to binding.  I now have 541.5 hours in the lighthouse quilt.

I have them arranged in the order I will put them on.  If I'm going to have anything 'scrappy', I want 'organized scrappy'.  I want each tab to coordinate, match, or blend in (somewhat) with the tabs on either side of it.

1989 3D Dahlia Quilt and Curtains

Looks like I was wrong about the lavender 3D Dahlia Quilt being the very first.  This one, made with the same pattern, was the very first.  I made it in early 1989, along with the curtains, before Hester was born in June of that year.

And I liked the pattern so well, I made it again two years later in a king-sized quilt instead of a crib-sized quilt.

1991 3D Dahlia Quilt

This is the very first ‘real’ quilt I made – with templates and suchlike.  It was made in 1991 for Hester, when she was two years old, when we moved her to her new room downstairs just before Lydia was born.  I made those curtains, too.

Here is the matching 3D Dahlia runner for the toy box, still in good shape, although the quilt itself is quite worn.

It wasn't until I was putting the templates back into the pocket in my quilt book that I noticed what it said on the pattern title page:  "For experienced quilters only."