I Love Parrot Fabric

Not posting for a week means I am very chatty this week.

I am at an impasse with the Burnside Bibs. The version I am making has an invisible zipper at the side. I need a 12" brown invisible zipper and I don’t have anything remotely close in my stash. I also know that searching for one in town is a lost cause, so I ordered what I needed. That project is on hold until the zipper arrives mid-week.

I started quilting the cheater print for the Rosebud Coat:

Parrot fabric!—my favorite kind. 😊 This is from the Sweet Talk line by Jennifer Paganelli for Windham Fabrics. I’m doing ruler lines “in the ditch” to outline each fabric. I have to backtrack occasionally but that’s okay.

The backing—which will also be the contrast collar—is one of the Speckled prints by Rashida Coleman Hale for Ruby Star:

The pattern very helpfully gives suggested sizes to quilt for each pattern piece. That is much easier than quilting four continuous yards of top, batting, and backing. I am currently working on a 40" wide by 35" tall piece for the back of the coat. I quilted about half of it while waiting for the casserole to come out of the oven last evening.

When I make the collar pieces, I’ll probably use the Speckled for both top and bottom layers and quilt a simple meander pattern. And I’ve decided just to make the pattern as written. I don’t need to complicate matters by re-drafting the fronts.

I picked up a couple of treasures at Half-Price Books in Tacoma:

The one on the left is Understanding Fabrics: From Fiber to Finished Cloth. I wonder if it was used as a textbook in a fashion design class because it is chock full of all sorts of technical and industrial information. The Complete Book of Tailoring is one of those vintage tomes that has a ton of useful tips and tricks—not that I plan to take up tailoring, but I’ll have it if I need it.