A pessimist, they say, sees a glass as being half empty; an optimist sees the same glass as half full. But a giving person sees a glass of water and starts looking for someone who might be thirsty.
~G. Donald Gale
Quilting
I started my blue and white shirt quilt saga years ago before DH himself retired. Whenever he retired a shirt, I checked it over and kept it if it was in good shape. I soon realized they are almost all blue or white. All solids or very calm prints. Recently more came from my sons and a few from a resale store nearby. Despite admiring Kaja's work incorporating shirts and other found textiles into her work, I never actually made anything with them.
Eventually I planned a simple checkerboard. Unfortunately I chose the lightest blue shirt to pair with white. It's just too pale for my taste. And too difficult to sew the fabric.
Did I mention how hard it was for me to work with these no-iron shirts? Since I had already deboned a huge pile of shirts I decided to cut them into 4.5" strips. That seemed narrow enough for the fabric. And there they've sat for the past year until Nann showed her Gator Party.
This was a way to use them. I cut my own rectangles from the strips.
They are still too quiet so I dug through my stash for a few large scale blue and white prints that might be a man's shirt. Polka dot, autos, and a darling Japanese rabbit print.
Next I pulled a bunch of leftover solids from my bins to add teeth, and whipped this out. It's adorable. The solids add some punch. My daughter requested the throw. Hooray. But I won't start quilting until the weather changes. It's still in the upper 90s F (mid-30s C) here.
Now to plan backs for both, baste them, and wait for cooler weather.
There are more strips, of course, but now I have another idea.
Reading
Another enjoyable Japanese coffee shop book. This shop is run by cats and only appears sporadically.
