swatch-tastic

Back in 2007 I took a trip to England with a 36 or so hour stopover in Paris, and for whatever reason, I started picking up these goofy patches. They were only a pound or so, and it was a few days into the trip that I began looking for them, so I missed looking for Stonehenge and a few other places... I've forgotten the where. Wells Cathedral probably didn't have one anyway, but there's one for Glastonbury Abbey, Stratford upon Avon, Canterbury Cathedral, Brighton, Oxford, Salisbury Cathedral and Cheddar Gorge, London and Paris as well, and the plan was find a sweatshirt that said ENGLAND or with the cross of St. George and put all the patches on the back. Which obviously never happened.

Oh, Fransson! had a quilt of the Tokyo Subway that was finished in 2011 which made me think, a London version would be way more fun for me personally since I've actually been there and I could put all those silly patches on it as embellishments. I have seen other travel quilts done in the style of a sampler that feature novelty fabrics and incorporate tee-shirts from the trip - the only tee-shirts I bought on the trip were at Oxford college, one for myself and my brother, who collects collegiate tee-shirts, for the wicked low price of 5 pounds each. And one at the Louvre, of the Venus De Milo; the image and Louvre logo began to peel off after the first washing, clearly it was not a screen print, and will never be used in a tee-shirt quilt. Neither will the Oxford shirt; I love it way too much. The London Tube Fabric I picked up from the 3 Rivers Quilt Show this past spring, with the intention of at least using it was as part of a label for a quilt - at least a throw - commemorating this voyage. 

And now, here I am, 5 years after the trip, at a quilt shop that had 3 very different stereotypical Anglophile fabrics. Total impulse buy. 

 

 And no idea, or plans what to do with it. I have a feeling it's going to be more modern, incorporate something of a map; two things I've never embarked upon before. I have fabric maps of the London Underground and Aboveground...which would make fabulous placemats. Or something. Reversible.