It’s August, is it? The calendar is once again running roughshod over me. It seemed like July was never-ending, but now we are already well into August somehow.
Here’s another shocking realization that slapped me in the face today. Everyone in the house is now at least 48″ tall…thereby qualifying for full-price amusement park tickets:
What?! Mind you, it’s not the extra money that bothers me. It’s that the child is well into 48″. To have taken advantage of height cost savings, we should have been at the park at least three years ago, maybe four. Which I think we were, but above 48″ seemed so far into the future at that point.
Soon we’ll lose kids meal privileges too, I suppose. Which is probably just as well. At least there’s no age or height limit to Happy Meals…although we don’t buy those. But I do buy the toys from time to time. Cuz you can’t beat a Madame Alexander Wizard of Oz Flying Monkey toy….
Well, you saw some of the shirts for the Reclaimed/Recycled Clothing Quilt-along the other day. I have to say, “breaking down” shirts is somewhat satisfying. Although I think the people at tennis lessons might have been a tad nervous about the lady sitting in her car waving around some long scissors.
Yesterday, I started sewing. My favorite shirt of the bunch did not disappoint:
I made four large blocks from the back of the shirt.
Here are some of the others:
So far, I have only cut into the backs of shirts. First I cut the required strip size, starting with the largest size first. Then I cut what I can from any odd shaped pieces or narrower strips. I’m using this handy tool:
I’m also starching the shirt piece before I cut it. Better to have the fabric a little crispy when trying to cut straight stripes. I’ve also learned I need to “read” some of the stripes better before cutting strips — in some cases, I can trim off a little and thereby get a strip that is an exact match to a previous strip (this makes it easier to match up triangles later). But it will be fun to add in squares that are a little off or made up of oddball triangles (I am telling myself it will be fun…).
I thought I needed some more medium value blocks, so we made a quick stop at another local thrift store (much more reasonably priced than most of last week’s shirts):
Sadly, I left behind a nice shirt that had Snoopy on the pocket. I’m here to tell you that if you are inclined to want to make a shirt stripe quilt, there is NO shortage of blue/white striped shirts out there.
See, even dear daughter’s top is part of the stripey scene over here:
There are other great ideas in the book for using up any shirt stripe leftovers:
This is one of my favorite Kaffe and Liza books (not that I don’t love them all) — rice bowls, hat boxes, dots, stripes. Rife with inspiration.
I’m so glad Anita suggested this quilt-along!! Thanks, Anita!
Oh, one last thing. Anyone else extremely excited about something like this in their email box:
I am!
No sewing tomorrow; we’ll be riding rides and amusing ourselves with amusement park food!
Mrs. Schmenkman Quilts 