The Last Piece

We took our first family road trip in the autumn of 1999.
A road trip from California to Alaska.
We had $2000 and 4 weeks of vacation time and planned to see and do it all.
We wandered the ALCAN (Alaska-Canadian Highway) at a rather leisurely pace stopping anywhere and everywhere we felt like stopping. We toured caverns and National Parks and historical sites. We photographed sweeping vistas and landmarks and tourist-y kitch. We got out first glimpses of the Northern Lights, and of moose and of herds of caribou.
And I bought my first piece of fabric sold by the meter. (We Americans, of course, are not into the metric system. All of that logical incrementation is just too much for our brains to handle!)
It was a pretty little burgundy rose bud on a butter colored background and I used it to made my youngest daughter a Sunday dress with a pretty crochet collar. It was a favorite of hers and she wore it for years.

The scraps, of course, went straight into the scrap basket and became quilting supplies.
Over the years, little bits have gone into many, many quilts.
There have been multiple occasions when I thought that I had used all of that fabric up, but then a new piece would appear from somewhere. And each time, the new piece would be even smaller than the piece before...some little snippet stuck to the backside of a larger piece of fabric in the basket.

But this time...this time I am certain that this is THE LAST piece. The end of an era.
It was hardly even big enough to work into anything (about a 1" square), but I just could not let it go. So I stitched it onto the tip of a string block and it became part of the 2015 String-Along.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

As a side note, we came home from that trip with $80 in our pockets. Today, I don't even think we could buy the gas to get there and back (in a big ol' pick up truck with a camper on it) for $2000!