Piles 'o Plaids and One Nice Shirt

This September I get to go to the North Carolina mountains again and teach for a week at John C. Campbell Folk School.
Go here if you want to learn more https://www.folkschool.org/index.php .


Two years ago I had a blast at JCC and they invited me back. This time the week I teach is called Scottish Heritage Week and the class is In Praise of Plaids. Now I'm deep into making not only the class sample but it's also the plaid quilt that's been running around in my head for years. The mission was to make a sampler quilt (uses different blocks) but somehow tie the whole thing together using plaids. Not surprisingly, the quilt's shaping up as very vintage in style.

    First I mined my own inventory of old blocks. Not hard. I never throw work away. Notice the label.


Then I needed to go find every plaid I could lay hands on. Seeing as how my stash is 30 years old, I have a few possibilities. And the occasion was a grand excuse for purchasing a few more plaids as well.

The quilt is shaping up to be, hmmm, rather large in size. As I tripped over the top while ironing the first two rows, the project gave me pause. Pinning it on the studio back fence for a photo was the only way to get distance on the project. Right now the quilt is 80" wide and there's still five additional rows to be added to its eventual length of 116". Right after thinking, "This might be god-awful-" the janitor at the building leaned out the door and yelled, "Hat's purty!" so I guess I'll trust his judgement.

So we will persist. As a Scot, stubbornness is an inbred trait. Granted, our tribe is also fashion-conscious. Witness my brother Chris with his wife Catherine at a Renaissance Fair. Both are outfitted in their respective clan plaids.

The nice plaid shirt will die a noble death as it gets used in this quilt.