How Long is Too Long?!

I admit it.

I have favorite prints that have stayed favorites and have never gone "out of style or date" with me.

This is one of them:



I think I had this print in every color way it ever came in. I'm drawn to two-color prints, blue on white, white on blue, white on red, red on white, etc. Simple, classic, not too fussy.

This one has a viney thing....love viney things! And I love stripes, and in the day, this was about as close as you could get to a print that looked like an old time shirting when old time shirtings were not being reprinted yet. Back in 1992, if you wanted to make a quilt that looked vintage, this was the kind of things we looked for. Things didn't come in lines or as collections, you browsed the shelf as if the store were a treasure hunt in itself and you did all the work to collect the fabrics that would go together to become the quilt of your dreams. Nothing was pre-cut and kitted in pre-matched bundles. And I loved the thrill of the hunt!

So why has this piece of yardage come out of the closet today? I'm looking for something big enough to back the magazine quilt project...and I think this will do the job! And even better than using this for the backing, is the trimmings I'm going to get afterward to add back into the strip/string bins. It's a GREAT old print, and will look great in scrap quilts to come. It's a classic!

I know I've got enough for the length, if I don't have enough for the width, I'll add a pieced something in between to make it wide enough, but this fabric will have found a home. Heck, it's only waited 18 years to go into a quilt!

What was going on in my life in 1992? My boys were 2 and 8. Oh, I miss those days! And sometimes not! in 1992 we bought our first house in Payette, Idaho. I was publishing my doll/animal patterns and making dolls for gift shops. That is why I probably had a whole bolt of this old print, the stripes made for great bunny bloomers and little bear aprons. Around that time is when I first vended at Quilt Market in Houston, and was picked up by the Butterick company with my patterns. It was a whole new exciting world, back in 1992. I was 30. I thought I was middle aged...LOL!! How could that be? As I'm barely considering myself middle aged 18 years later?

This project has had me going back in time.....I've pulled blues and neutrals just by color, not by print, and I have fabrics in it that date back from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and today in it. What a fun walk down memory lane. I can see the quilt appraisers of the future having a hard time dating this one! It's gotta be dated by the newest fabric in it, right? Good luck! *hehe* I just might have to leave that wide selvage visible somewhere...it's an icon!



And through it all, I've had great company...



But it's awfully hard to attach borders when Oscar is asleep in the center of the quilt top on the floor!