Looking back.....

.....quite a way back, I mean, not 2010. 

I was thinking today about all the numerically 'special' dates that have occurred recently, like January 1 and January 11 of 2011.  The reason I was reminded was that I spied evidence of the first time I remember commemorating such a date. 

I was quilting this quilt one day, and it occurred to me that the day's date was 01-02-03 !

I had seen many old quilts that had interesting things quilted into them, where people didn't notice until their eye accidentally fell on that particular spot.  I decided that I just had to include that day's date into that day's quilting.  Blessedly, I was quilting the borders, so it worked out perfectly to include the date at one end of the quilt.

I finished this quilt shortly thereafter, in 2003, and yet, until today, it had held it's pencil markings throughout several washes.  Today, I washed it to remove likely dust from it having hung on my living room wall all summer, and SURPRISE..........among all the lovely, cottony crinkles, the pencil marks are GONE !   Oh, I'm so glad of that !

The center of the quilt was all hand-pieced, one of those many-year projects that you keep in a little box and pick up and put down for 'lap work'.  When it reached a size big enough for a throw, I wanted to quilt and bind it, but I stumbled across some odd borders that I had pieced years before, and miraculously, they fit it.  So I added them by machine (they had been machine-pieced), and I hand-quilted it.

For the back, I used 3 toile fabrics that I had been hoarding and couldn't bear to cut into little pieces.  Since the borders were three different color-families, I felt that it gave me 'license' to use the three colors on the back (this was long before I used multi-fabric backings as a general rule ).

So, it turned out to be a favorite quilt, front AND back, and now it's truly wonderful with it's CLEAN new look.

This whole thing has me thinking about the quilt I'd like to be working on on November 11th of this year !   Think about it --  11-11-11

Oh, and a little edit here........I made this today.

  I know, I know, it's small and kindof useless, but it kept my mind and my hands busy, so it was definitely not worthless.  I had 10 or 11 little blocks leftover from the zigzag top and when I lay them together on my cutting board, I took one look, and then another, and then I said, "oh, why not just sew them together just like that?"  They fit a little pillow that I had lying around, probably 9 inches square or so, and give it a fresh look.  The hubby called it pretty, so I'm calling it a success.