It's beginning to look a lot (or at least a little) like....

Portland Head Light!

The "New England Lighthouses to Applique" book arrived from the eBay seller on Monday, so I spent the rest of that day in a semi-paralyzed state as I studied the task ahead of me. What, oh what, had I gotten myself into?

There is so much tiny little detail in the appliqué pattern: Did I really want to get involved with this?

But I'd said I'd make the new A∆K state banner for Maine, so I told myself I'd best do just that.

Tuesday morning I high-tailed it to Marden's in South Portland. If you're not a Mainer, then perhaps you don't know Marden's. Marden's is a huge store, with locations throughout Maine, that sells "surplus and salvage" items: bras to wall-to-wall carpeting, greeting cards to furniture; you name it, Marden's probably has it and at a ridiculously low price.

At some of the Marden's stores, and thank heavens at their new store in South Portland, they have a huge fabric department. This is a quilter's haven, for most of the fabrics are top-of-the-line, name brand quilting cottons for $2.99-$3.49 per yard. I know. I know. It's almost too good to be true. The sales lady in the fabric department on Tuesday told me busloads of quilting group ladies descend on Marden's regularly, and there's a big group coming in from Pennsylvania in a few days.

With my Portland Head Light appliqué pattern in hand, I pushed my cart up and down the rows and rows of beautiful cottons, looking for just the right color and design for each segment of the appliqué. What I couldn't find, the sales lady helped me find. She knows her fabrics and, apparently, loves helping others. I hated to tell her I wanted only 1/4 yard of each of about fifteen bolts of fabric, but she didn't seem to mind tackling the job of cutting the quarter-yards for me.

Yesterday and early this morning I began cutting out the segments of the design. It was exciting to put the little pieces on the layout and see a close resemblance to Portland Head Light emerge.

And when Ken asked me, finally, what I was making, I said, "Come look at it and YOU tell ME."

He took one look and said, thankfully, "Portland Head Light!"

Phew. If he'd said a potato barn in Aroostook Country, I'd have scrapped the project then and there and returned to the comfort of my knitting.

Originally I was disappointed when I placed the pale blue sky piece on the layout. Why had I chosen such a pale blue? Then I discovered, after all of the other pieces were in place, at the bottom of the fabric pile lay the actual sky piece. It works much better, and I have no idea why I even bought the pale blue piece.

I stopped to update this blog because I'm now dreading the next step in this banner-making project: applying Heat'n'Bond to the back of each fabric segment, ironing it on, peeling off the top layer of the Heat'n'Bond, placing the fabric pieces in their final position on the liner fabric, and ironing them in place. I've never worked with Heat'n'Bond before so I'm not sure what to expect.

After the pieces are all bonded into place, the machine appliqué begins. I've never machine appliquéd before, either. Help.