The past comes back to haunt you

(Or, the subconscious influence of unexpected good fortune ...)

Looking for a different bit of information, I was surprised to come across the Spring 2004 newsletter on the London Quilters website, and see that I'd written this - which might explain my fascination with buying "interesting" men's shirts in charity shops:

"Lucky Raffle Ticket by Margaret Cooter

"A few meetings ago I won a prize in the raffle, and want to take this opportunity to thank the unknown London Quilter who donated that prize. It was a book, "Traditional Quilts from Around the World" by Miranda Innes, and it's a delightful book. Published in 1992, it’s still in print, and if you are a traditional quilter or interested in historical quilts, this book should be in your library. It would be a good present for someone who's just discovered quilts and wants to get going on a medium-sized project.

"The book centres on "18 easy patchwork, quilting and appliqué projects to make by machine" - but don't let the thought of yet more projects put you off (after all, who needs more UFOs??) - that said, the instructions look to be clear and complete, and the projects eminently manageable, even for the time challenged among us. It's as a reference book that this book comes into its own. The sections introducing each of the projects contain a two-page spread with a succinct exposé of the art form and several sumptuous photos of examples. These circle the globe: Hawaiian appliqué, Ghanaian Ewe cloth, an Australian tailor's quilt, simple Amish shapes, British strippies, French boutis, Japanese sashiko, Pakistani tasseled quilt, Seminole patchwork, Swedish woolen quilt.

"As a transplanted Canadian, I was enlightened to see a tradition I'd not been aware of: Canadian shirting quilts. Aha, a catalyst for finally reusing those recycled stripes and plaids (a.k.a. old shirts); obviously, fate has taken a hand by putting this book my way ... it must be time to start a new project ...."

And above are some fabrics reclaimed from men's shirts, still waiting to become that "new project". (The pale lime green near the top will provide the "spark" in the essentially dull selection.) The book in my 2004 review seems to have disappeared from my shelves, but researching shirting quilts on the net has turned up some inspiring pictures and interesting snippets of history.

Lauren Phillips is working on a shirting quilt based on a Kaffe Fassett design - it needs 1,116 triangles!
Round about 1900, shirting fabrics were popular for offsetting dark colours, as in this quilt - see a detail on this site

And there's more yet to be discovered...