1718 Coverlet Inaugural

I was looking at The 1718 Coverlet book by Susan Briscoe given to me by my sister Paula and I realized that next year the coverlet will be 300 years old.  I decided that I needed to get to work on it.  In the spirit of OMG by ElmStreet Quilts  I decided it needed to jump the queue. Originally I thought of trying to finish in a year.  When I sat down and mentally calculated how many blocks a week I would have to do, I quickly realized that to impose such a stringent timeline on the project would take my joy away.  I decided to shoot for a two year timeline instead.  I started collecting fabric for this project a few years back.  I decided to honor the original which is made of silk. I would use silk radiance.  It is a cotton silk blend that can be hand washed.  I decided that quilts are not washed all that often so hand washing would be just fine. Most of my quilts have been cotton.  I recently started using wool.  This will be a new adventure.

I like the look of the look of the quilt so I originally planned on sticking to silk radiance and the color scheme of the original.  I was going to try my hand at dyeing some PFD silk radiance to emulate the striped fabric and let it be 100% silk blend.  I changed my mind.  I will make fabric choices block by block.  I have come Cherrywood hand dyes that I love and some cottons with text to represent the papers that had been used in the construction of the quilt by mosaic patchwork a.k.a English Paper Piecing.  I think my sister wanted me to join her in adventures in EPP and thought this might be the spark.  She was right.  I plan on using mixed techniques.  The whole project will be willy nilly. I like willy nilly.    

Digression:  I looked up the deriviation of the term willy nilly. "The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology says it's a contraction of “will I, nill I” or “will he, nill he” or “will ye, nill ye.” The word “nill” is from the Old English “nyllan,” a combination of “ne” (no) and “willan” (will). The phrase “willy-nilly” means “unwillingly” or “haphazardly." " Cool that.

I know OMG is not biannual. But I thought I would make short term goals along the way.  January goal is complete-Fabric Choices.