This past week I made one block for the Just Take 2 quilt, using about 1/4 yard of fabric.  Then I went to the Goodwill Clearance Center.  Let’s just say my numbers got shot.  A while back I figured my ‘shirt standard’ to be 1 1/2 yards — and I bought 18 shirts/pajama pants.  But since 5 or 6 of them are tiny I’m figuring my yardage based on 15 shirts which means I’m counting 22 1/2 yards.  I definitely need to stay away from thrift shops for a while until I get a few more quilts made.

Most of the shirts were plaids, stripes and checks. My favorite find of the day was a gray shirt.  I just love this print.

Well, I can’t put it off any longer.  Here are this week’s statistics.

Fabric Added Since Last Report: 22.5 yards
Fabric Added to Date:  22.5 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report: 0.244 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 0.663 yards

Net Used for the year -21.837 yards

To see how others did with their stash follow the links over at Patchwork Times.

I’ve been jealous of the report of quilters scoring big on their thrift store shirts, but today, I have to say no more. Last fall I did OK over the span of two weekends and many miles on the car as I drove from one side of town to the other, but now I’ve found the Goodwill Clearance Center and it’s only 20 miles from me.

It doesn’t look like much since that pile on the left has some tiny shirts in it.  I had no expectations on what I would find or how the process would work.  So, I put my tie shoes one, removed my watch (the band is about to break) and rings and off I went.

This store has bins that are about 4 or 5  feet wide and maybe 8 or 10 feet long and a foot deep. On wheels they are about waist high.  They are set six bins in a section and I guess there were 14 sections, plus some around the perimeter of the room.  About every 30 minutes they swap 1/3 of the bins out and everyone descends on them looking for whatever it is they are looking for.

I focused on 100% cotton and big enough to get at least one block out of the shirt.  That top shirt on the left is only a 3 mo size, so that’s about all I’ll get.  Once I got an arm full of shirts and had made the rounds of the bins, I went and found a shopping cart.  I pushed the cart onto the scale, it was weighed and I ended up with 8 1/2 pounds of shirts for $6.71.  I’m guessing there’s at least 20 yards of usable fabric on my ironing board.

So, ‘de-boning’ these shirts, plus the ones in my overflowing shirt bucket is going to be my weekend project.  Once I make a few more quilts with shirts, I’ll venture back up north to replenish my stash.

I participated in an “ugly” fabric challenge in 2009.  The challenge fabric was roses strewn across a green background.  I fussy cut the roses and wove them around a “wicker” trellis.  The roses are machine appliqued/quilted with invisible thread.  The trellis is stitched in place with a small satin stitch.  It is then quilted 1/4″ inside each of the spaces created by the trellis.

The quilt measures 15 3/4″ wide by 23 1/2″ long.  It hangs over my work computer.

I’ve entered this quilt in Quilting Gallery’s weekly Quilters’ Show and Tell.  Please take a look at the quilts and vote for your favorite.

Judy, over at Patchwork Times has started a regular “What’s Cooking” post.  Each week she picks an ingredient for us to use in a recipe.  So far she’s picked Sweet Potatoes – which I love, Carrots – which I have nothing against and now Spinach.

So which week did I try to participate?  Obviously I’ve lost my mind.  I blame it on the still clean house and kitchen.

I happen to love Spanakopita.  My sister-in-law’s mother taught me how to make it — but since I’m the only one who will eat spinach around here I didn’t want to go to the trouble.  So, I did a web search for spinach recipes for people who don’t like spinach and found THIS.

Sounds easy enough I have everything except for the breadcrumbs and spinach.  So off to the store I went.

The only fresh spinach I could find was a salad kit, so I bought it.  I then attempted to figure out how much spinach is in a head of spinach.  Search for spinach ball recipes and decided that I probably only had enough spinach for 1/6th of the original recipe.

• 1 spinach kit (spinach only)
• 3 T butter – melted
• 2/3 C Italian bread crumbs
• 3 T parmesan cheese
• 1/8 t pepper
• 1 egg beaten
• 1 T chopped onion (in the bowl)
• 1/8 t salt
• 1/8 t thyme

I started by rinsing the spinach, running it through the salad spinner and then tossing it in a covered pan on med-high heat for about 5 minutes.

Once it was done, I dumped it on to a paper towel, squeezed out the excess moisture, then chopped it up before adding it to the other ingredients.

Once mixed, I used a my cookie scoop and put 1″ balls of the mixture on a greased cookie sheet.

I baked them for 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

The bottoms were nice and brown. I’m not sure if I would call this finger food. They were tasty enough, but not something I would do again.

Check out the links over at Patchwork Times for more spinach recipes.  Next week’s ingredient is cream style corn.  I like that!

This is my interpretation of Grandma’s Favorite Compass – Block # 23 of last year’s Just Takes 2 quilt.  I started this block at least twice when it first came out and if pieced as designed, I would still be waiting to finish the block.

Inspiration struck — try reverse applique, specifically fusique’® by Linda Everhart of Among Quilting Friends.  It’s the method I used to make THIS WALLHANGING.

It’s not perfect, but it is done and that means I have finished Section A of the quilt!

There may be other similar changes to this quilt before it’s finished.

Over the weekend I finally opened up the box containing the Eeyore quilt.  I pulled out the background and pieces I’ve worked on so far and pinned them in place.  At the moment it looks like a Piglet quilt.

I even took a few stitches on the Double Wedding Ring quilt sitting in the foreground – but not enough to update the icon in my sidebar.

One of my goals this month is it get the center of the Eeyore quilt done, so perhaps I best get to it.

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

It’s a pretty slim report today.  I bound the baby quilt last Sunday and made the Antique Tile block for the BOM Friday.  I can’t remember the last time I saw a quilt shop and the last thing I bought on-line were a few books.

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

Fabric Used Since Last Report: 0.419 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 0.419 yards

Net Used for the year .0419 yards

So far so good. Let’s hope the rest of year keeps me in more fabric used than purchased.

Linked up with Judy’s Stash Report over at Patchwork Times.

I’ve started a new quilt.  Dorothy Young is doing a 26 month BOM over on her Yahoo! group A Pocket Full of Mysteries.  About once a year she presents a very well written mystery quilt.   I wasn’t in a position to do the mystery quilt this year, but I do think I can keep up with a single block a month.

A is for Antique Tile is the first blocks of her 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

This quarter log cabin quilt was probably the 3rd or 4th quilt I finished.  I made it as a store sample when I was working at Northwest Fabrics & Crafts.  The date stitched on the back is May 1991.

Believe it or not the gold is tissue lamé.  Although I hadn’t quilted much, I knew I really didn’t want that thin, ravelly stuff in my quilt, but given that’s what I had to work with I had to come up with some way to make it work.

I carefully fused black knit interfacing to the lamé.  It stabilized the fabric enough for me to work with, although I haven’t washed the wall hanging.  It has three tabs at the top to allow it to hang from a cafe rod.

The piece measures 33″ square and there is very little quilting in it — just stitch in a ditch around the blocks (not logs) and the border.  I have no idea what type of batting was used.

It’s been two weeks since we cleaned the house.  OK. 1 1/2 weeks.  It was in decent shape by Christmas, but definitely company ready (beyond my standards) by the 28th.  We’ve kept it clean.

The quilt rack from my sewing room is stored in the basement.  All of the Christmas decorations have been collected, boxed and stored under the basement stairs. The dining table, coffee table and wing back chair are back in their usual positions.

The bed was made this morning, the laundry, although not caught up, what is washed is put away, it’s 7 PM, we’ve eaten and the dishes are washed.

So why can’t I quilt?

I think it’s because it’s too clean.  Back when we lived in Texas I had my house this clean and I couldn’t sew or do counted cross stitch.  I was antsy.  Couldn’t sit still.  At the time I wrote it off to being afraid of messing things up.  Not wanting to get up to do something else and leaving anything out.  But tonight I had a revelation.

Quilting is my escape.

If the house is clean I have nothing to escape from.

Clearly I’m going to have open that box and throw bits and pieces around. It’s too clean and I have a quilt to make.