I’ve gone through all of my shirts and dug deeper into the mystery crate. These are the pairings for the rest of the blocks for Nifty Thrifty.

Nifty Thrifty is still on my design wall.  After digging through my shirts I’ve found enough to add a round of blocks. Although, clearly I’m going to have to redo two of them.  The first block I’m planning on redoing is the top block on the left.  I think flipping the fabrics will solve that problem.

On the other hand the dark block on the top will need a different  light fabric.  Or maybe I’ll use the “light” as the dark fabric and find a lighter fabric.

Perhaps this will be the week I get the top finished.

Don’t forget to check out others’ design walls by following the links over at Patchwork Times.

This week I focused on the Nifty Thrifty quilt top. But since I decided to add more blocks, the top is not finished and I can’t count the fabric used.  Most of the block pairs have been selected (I’m still waffling on a couple of them and one turned out to be BAAAD.) Of course to select the pairs I had to finish cleaning up the shirts.

The pile of shirts has gone from this:

To this:

All that is left for me to deal with is the shirt tails/strings and cuffs.

Fabric Added Since Last Report: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 122.087 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report:  0 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 54.645 yards

Net Used for the year -67.442 yards

See how others are doing with their stash over at Patchwork Times.

I’ve decided to add a round of blocks to my Nifty Thifty quilt.  So, I’ve had to come up with some substitutions as I will run out of the beige and red shirts I used for the sashing and the cornerstones.

The picture above is the sashing fabric — the one on the top is what I’ve used so far, the plaid on the bottom is the substitute.  That was easy.  The decision regarding the cornerstones is not going to be as easy.

The plaid across the bottom is what is in the quilt.  There simply is not enough of this shirt left unless I haphazardly piece scraps together – and then there may not be.  I’m considering using another red shirt for the cornerstones on the outer edge.  I’ve added a strip of brown across the top as that shirt is part of the pieced sashing which actually surrounds the cornerstone.

My first thought was to use the plaid on the left as it has the yellow that is in the original shirt. Now that I see it with the brown, I’m not so sure.  Perhaps the right on the right.  Which ever shirt I don’t use will end up in the quilt as a block. Since I need to make another 22 blocks, I can leave the three red blocks to the end and ponder the question.  Who knows, I may dig through my crumb box and find more of the original plaid.

I’ve gotten all the blocks sewn together, so now it’s decision time. This is Nifty Thrift from Bonnie Hunter’s book Scraps & Shirttails.  Her quilt is one row wider and longer than what I have here.

In those spaces between the brown squares will be strips of the shirts I’ve used in the quilt. In theory, after that there is a plaid border – not that I have a single piece of plaid to make that border.

There are two options I’m considering.

1. Make half blocks to put all the way around the quilt and the figure out what to do for the final border.
2. Make enough full blocks to go all the way round the quilt.

Regardless of which option I choose I’m going to need to find another light and red shirt for my sashing and cornerstones.  I think I’ve got enough of the brown.

But my husband asked me a question.  “What’s the hurry?” — as in why do I need to get this quilt finished.  My only answer was to get it off the design wall — which is easily done now.  So as I contemplate my options, I’m going to tackle this:

It’s my basket of shirts.  I’ve not done anything with the pile (other than push it here and there) because I don’t really have a place to store the ‘de-boned’ pieces.  However, my husband said something else — “You’ll get more shirts” — and he’s right — if I were looking, but I’m not since I’m tripping over this basket.

Who knows, by the time I finish this, inspiration may have struck.

G is for Glory Box – the sixth block of Dorothy Young’s alphabet block-of-the-month. If you wish to quilt along, join the group by clicking on the “Join Now!” button.

Click to join apocketfullofmysteries.

Up on my design wall today are the Nifty Thrift blocks. After pondering it for a week, the quilt will have just 20 blocks in it.  I was asked last week how big the blocks are. They are 9″ with a 2″ sashing.  Since this picture was taken, I’ve assembled the top row of blocks and attached the missing sashing.

My goal for this week is to finish this top.  Stay tuned to see if I get it done. In the meantime check out what other’s have on their design walls over at Patchwork Times.

It’s been a while since I actually declared I would finish something at the beginning of the month and actually finished it.  Not that there haven’t been other finishes over the past 6 months.  This month I listed the Birthday Quilt, although I really wasn’t certain I would be able to finish it with everything else I wanted to also work on.  But the Birthday Quilt (and pillow case) is completed.

This is called the Birthday Quilt because I received the blue and white Pennsylvania blocks as part of a birthday swap with the Quilt In a Day Community On-line Forum back in 2009.  Wanting a larger quilt, I set the blocks on point and made the yellow and blue LeMoyne stars.  I finished the quilt top in August 2009.  Then it sat waiting for either a border – although I was pretty sure I didn’t want a border, or for quilting inspiration to strike.

This year for my 50th birthday I decided I was going to finish this quilt.  I scheduled time at Quilted Memories, and then panicked because I  only had half of the quilting figured out. Fortunately before I was scheduled to work on the quilt, I figured out the rest of the quilting.

The quilting took five hours and 5 1/2 pre-wound bobbins of Bottom Line.  The top thread is Omni Thread in Light Tan.  Since this was basically the first time I put this much quilting into a quilt I wanted thread to disappear, but yet at the same time I needed to be able to see it and not have it leap off the quilt in the blue and yellow.  I’m very pleased at how well the Light Tan worked.

The batting is Hobbs’ Tuscany 100% Bleached Cotton.  Something I’ve read said it will shrink 3% – 5%.  This quilt shrank about 5% as it measured 67 1/2″ x 81 3/4″ after binding and when I took it out of the dryer it measured 63″ x 77″.

The backing fabric was made from 2 100% cotton Better Homes and Garden tablecloths.

Finally, the binding.  As late as Friday night after the quilt was trimmed I had no idea what I was going to use for binding.  But when I opened my box of blue fabric and started digging, I found the perfect fabric.

It’s shades of blue, white and just a touch of yellow. I thought I would have a strip left over, but as it turns out there are only the triangles trimmed from making the binding. After attaching the binding to the quilt I had just enough binding left to go around two edges of the label.

I also made a matching pillowcase.  The body is from the backing and the blue is from one of the stars.

Well, there will be no hoarding of the favorite fabric.  I apparently miscalculated how many strips I needed and all I have left are the triangles trimmed from where I sewed the strips together. But that’s OK. Someday those scrap triangles will end up in a pineapple quilt.

Since I finished the quilt – and a pillowcase, I have fabric to report as used — all from stash.

Fabric Added Since Last Report: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 122.087 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report:  7.378 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 54.645 yards

Net Used for the year -67.442 yards

See how others are doing with their stash over at Patchwork Times.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who hoards hides hangs on to a favorite fabric.  This is one of mine.  It’s Garden Glory by Debbie Caffery for Northcott.  I first bought a FQ the summer of the Iowa road trip.  I think that was in 2004.

That summer I was collecting blue fabrics for a blue quilt I was doing to make for my husband. This was one of many fabrics gathered that year.  Since I only needed a 6 x 12 piece of each fabric for the Blue Applecore, I had lots of fabric left over.  The following summer I made THIS quilt from my blues.  When I got to the borders I decided the perfect fabric would be the fabric pictured above.

There was just one problem.

My FQ did not have the identifying information on it.  That Iowa trip — 10 or 12 quilt shops in 3 days — not to mention prior to that I had been in multiple quilt shops before and after the road trip.  Canvasing my two favorite fabric search engines FabShopHop and Quiltshop.com didn’t turn up the fabric. Finally I sent an e-mail to the Fab Shop Hop network and The Virginia Quilter responded that they knew what the fabric was and sent me a link to order what I needed — or maybe I took all they had at this point I can’t remember.

A few months later I spied some at Quilters Haven  (probably where I bought the first FQ) and bought the rest of the bolt (about 2 or 3 yards) even though I didn’t have any plans for it.  Since then I’ve used it several times first in a matching baby quilt and then carefully in a block here or there, including in the Birthday Quilt.

So, when I started digging in my box of blue fabrics looking for something for the binding of the Birthday Quilt I knew I had found the right fabric — if I had enough.

I do.  The piece left measures 31 x 28  — which should leave me with a 3″ strip of fabric 31″ long.  Hum… may be instead of a pillowcase with a blue cuff and yellow accent, I’ll go the other way and make a yellow cuff and use the remaining blue strip as the accent.

Then again, I may just hoard it.