Bunny Trail on a Drunkard's Path

I had made up my mind, or so I thought, not to start a new project until I quilted at least one of several flimsies.  Well, that plan lasted all of about a day.  For some reason, I found myself rummaging through the vintage fabric drawer and pulling out a piece of clothing from the far back corner.

This jacket belonged to my late mother.  Before that, it belonged to me.  I think it came from JCPenney in the late 1980s or early 1990s.  I wore it to work for a little while but when I got tired of it, Mom adopted it and wore it a few more years.  We didn't often share clothing, and I think the jacket probably ran big on her (back then, over-sized was in fashion), but we both liked its funky pattern, which seemed to go well with a number of things in the closet. 

Are you having flashbacks of Full House?  The Cosby Show?  Roseanne?  Yeah, I know.

It's one of the only articles of clothing I saved after she passed away.  Thought I might incorporate into a quilt someday.  It's a linen blend.  The label says dry clean only, but I've washed it in the washer and dried in the dryer just fine.

I cut it apart on Saturday afternoon and started mulling what I might do with it.  Soon I was pulling stuff from the stash.  Being a large scale print, I worried about cutting it up too small and losing the effect.  I also couldn't decide between options for coordinating fabrics.  In the end, I used them all. 

There are four of us kids in the family.  I like to think of each fabric representing one of her children.  Not sure which is which, although I will say I'm partial to the peacock print.

I cut the binding this evening from a leopard print fat quarter.  It makes me smile.

This particular layout of drunkard's path blocks is called Whirling Arches.  It will be a wall hanging.  It might seem kind of strange looking to others (I've sort of lost my perspective on it at this point), but I think it will be something I enjoy looking at from time to time, for the memory.

There's quite a bit of jacket fabric left, which is going back in the drawer for now, until the next whim comes along.

I heard this song on the radio yesterday, by Tim O'Brien and Darrell Scott.  Both of them do some nice harmonies, and there is mandolin on the studio version, which I downloaded from Amazon.  The only version I could find on YouTube is Darrell playing and singing it solo at a recent gig, but he does a masterful job.