January 1-12, 1990

I closed my quilt shop in February of 1986. The larger prints were becoming popular and I liked them so much more than the little calicoes I had been using since 1957. By 1990 I had quite a collection of fabric but I hadn't been able to find time to use any of it. On January 1, 1990 I decided I would take a block I liked and each day I would go into my studio and collect 5 fabrics I liked together and I would make one block. This continued until about the14th when life took over again and I didn't even have time for one block a day. In the first part of February, 1990 I decided I would just take my favorite 12 of the blocks and make them into a quilt, thus the name Jan. 1-12, 1990. This one is 66" x 80". It took me a long time to find an outer border I liked and when I found it I looked for a middle border that was exactly half way in value between the first and third borders. I was into trying transparency which had to have the exact light medium dark values.

This is one of my favorite blocks with some of my favorite prints of the day.
Some of the blocks had fussy cut areas. This one also had a polished cotton, popular in that time period.
This block was the favorite of most viewers at a quilt show.
More fussy cut birds in the little squares.
I used Thermore batting in this one. It is the very thin polyester batting that was introduced in the 1980's as a batting for quilted clothing. Due to public demand they started packaging it in bed size pieces. It gives the feel of the old fashioned summer quilts that had flannel instead of batting.