At first glance it looks like nothing.  And I suppose technically that’s true — either that or there’s just threads on the wall.

But what I’m excited to show today is that the entire wall is assessable.  And, no, it’s not the trick of shoving the boxes over to the other side of the room — although I do admit to having a couple which still need to land in their final resting place.

My DH finally talked me into another set of shelves.  They were sitting in the garage unused so all we had to do was buy a set of wheels and assemble them.   They are just visible on the right edge of the picture.

There are now three sets of shelves on the front wall of my space.  Ultimately I want to get rid of at least two of those sets, but I’ve got to get rid of “stuff” to make it happen.

It’s not much, but I already have a box full of old quilting/sewing/crochet and cross stitch magazines/books which I plan to take to the fabric recycling place.  I’ve got a paper sack full of paperback novels which I’ve either read, or won’t get around to reading (love my Kindle!) those will go to the library for them to either put on the “free” shelf or sell.

Since there’s still a bit to do before I can actually sew again it may be two weeks before I have anything on the wall again.  But I had to do this.  My area had just gotten to the point where I couldn’t do anything without spending 15 minutes clearing an area so I could sew/cut only to have to move it again so I could work.

Hopefully others will have more inspiring design walls.  They can be checked out over at Patchwork Times.

Well, I did it.  I came up with a yardage figure for the shirts I purchased last month.  Let’s just say I won’t be breaking even on my  fabric usage vs purchase this year.   After I finished Checkerboard Plaids last week, all I did was stitch pieces of batting together.  The end result is I have 3 batts ready to go and more importantly all the batting contained again.

Here are the numbers.

Fabric Added Since Last Report: 64.5 yards (all recycled fabrics!)
Fabric Added to Date:  163.032 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report: 5.33 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 83.818 yards

Net Used for the year -79.214 yards

Ugh.  On the other hand, I am looking forward to making more quilts with the recycled fabric.  See how others are faring with their stashes by following the links over at Patchwork Times.

This afternoon I attended two quilt shows.  The first was the Blue Valley Quilt Guild’s and the second was Lees Summit Quilter’s Guild.  Since both shows were the same day, the joined together on the advertising and there was a “passport” prize drawing for anyone attending both shows.  Did I mention they were on opposite sides of town and the state line?

My batteries died on my camera partway through the BVQG show and I didn’t think to pull out my cell phone.  I did think to pull out the cell phone at the LSQG show, and the pictures are not very good.  But the quilts are just as awesome.

Once all the blocks were made the quilt top came together quickly.  Somehow I managed to end up with an extra block which I’ll toss in the orphan block box.  One of these days I’ve really got to make something with those blocks.

Still working on cleaning up the sewing room, but I really need to get back to Eeyore and the Christmas BOM.  Last week my stitch card finally came in so now I can resume machine applique.

Hop on over to Patchwork Times to check out what others have on their design walls.

As many of you know I follow Judy over at Patchwork Times.  In fact I started blogging in part to participate in the Sunday  Stash Reports and Monday Design walls.  I’m also a big Bonnie Hunter fan.

Over the past few years I’ve picked up shirts here and there, but didn’t have enough variety to do anything with them.  It’s only in the past couple of months that I decided I had enough variety to make a quilt.

At the beginning of the year I start my usage and purchase counts at zero.  I really don’t know how much fabric I have and I’m not sure I want to know.  But it’s kind of nice at the end of the year to know if I used more fabric than I purchased or vice versa.  This is why I track the yardage.

So far, when I’ve purchases shirts, I’ve only measured the resulting fabric when I deconstructed the shirt.  If at the end of the year there were 5 shirts still in shirt form, it wasn’t considered “fabric” toward my end of year stats.  On the other hand, if I then cut into the shirt the following year, it was already “stash” so I didn’t count it in the new year’s totals.

But now that I’m making a quilt, how do I count the usage?  It wasn’t counted in, so I how can I count it out?  I’m not using all of the shirt, so I can’t just say “6 shirts used in this quilt”.

I’ve decided I need a “shirt standard”.  Buy 3 shirts then immediately count the yardage based on the “shirt standard”.    My shirt standard is 1 1/2 yards based on the shirt pictured above.  It is a man’s large long-sleeved shirt.  I picked this shirt as most of the shirts I’ve purchased have been larges or even smaller if I liked the fabric.  Not all have been long-sleeved. On the other hand I did get lucky and find two 4XL shirts yesterday so it will all even out.

So how did I arrive at 1 1/2 yards?  I started by de-constructing the shirt, then I rough measured the pieces.

The yoke:

The front (times 2):

The sleeves (times 2):

Finally the back:

I ignored the “missing” fabric as I got strings out of the deal and this is only a large shirt.  So here’s the math:

• yoke:  5 x 19 x 2 = 190
• front: 19 x 22 1/2 x 2 = 855
• sleeves: 11 x 26 x 2 = 572
• back: 22 1/2 x 24 = 540
• Total yardage in square inches = 2157.

I divided the shirt number by 1440 – the number I use for a yard (36 x 40 usable inches).  The result is 1.497 yards or 1 1/2 yards.

Maybe 10 minutes of time results in a fist full of strings, a pile of buttons, and the equivalent of 1 1/2 yards of fabric to go into one of my scrappy quilts.  (That pile on the top left is what I threw out).

I guess now I need to check my spreadsheet to figure out how many shirts I’ve bought this year so I can include it in next week’s stash report.

There was no stash report last week.  Partly because I didn’t have any usable count and partly because I realized I hadn’t figured out how to get a good tally on the shirts I disassembled.

In the past when I tore into a shirt the same year that I bought it, I roughly measured the usable fabric.  If I didn’t break the shirt down until the following year, it was considered stash as I start my numbers over at the beginning of the year.  But this time, I was so excited to start my quilt, I didn’t take stock of the yardage I recovered from the shirts before I started cutting it up for my current quilt.

To resolve this issue, I think I’m going to take one of the large shirts and calculate the yardage.  I’ll then use this number at the time I bring the shirts home.  It won’t be totally accurate, but it will give me a rough idea of the yardage.  I must say, it’s going to blow my numbers, but I will survive.  Look for the shirt tally next week.

As for this week’s numbers, I don’t quite have Checkerboard Plaid completed — one more row of blocks to sew together and then two more long seams.  So, unless something drastic happens those numbers will be in next week’s tally as well.

What’s driving my number up this week is the Halloween fabric and the return of a stack of 2 1/2″ squares.  Two months to go and I see the need to adjust my goal (darn shirts!)  Let’s just say I hope my numbers don’t show more than 50 yards in the hole!

Fabric Added Since Last Report: 2.23 yards
Fabric Added to Date:  98.532 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report: 0 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 78.488 yards

Net Used for the year -20.044 yards

Here’s the link for the stash report over at Judy’s.

The shirts are in the washer, or I’d have a picture of them as well.  This is kind of fun.  Scan Craigslist looking church and school rummage sales.  Run out to them and see what I can find.  I brought home 9 shirts this morning — 2 of them 4XL, all but one were long sleeved.  Then this afternoon I spotted a sale that lead me to believe there was quilting fabric.

I’m not sure what I’m more excited about.  The Halloween fabric, or the two books I bought — Diana Gabaldon’s Drums of Autumn and The Fiery Cross.  I also found another shirt at the afternoon sale.

Now to decide how to count the shirt fabric for tomorrow’s report.  One of the reasons there wasn’t a report last week.

Years ago I read an article in Quilt Quilts # 31 (2002) where the quilter made a pair of quilts for her twin niece and nephew.  I really liked the quilts and the concept so filed the information away for future use.

Four years later, I found out my niece was expecting twins, so I dug out the magazine.  That year, I also attended my first Quilt Shop Hop.  At each store I  purchased one or two bright-colored FQs.  I decided to pair it with a purple batik.

The quilt on the right is laid out in the  Jewel Boxes pattern. This one I gave to my great-niece Baily.  The one on the left I gave to my great-nephew Brock and call it Treasure Boxes.

Both quilts have Warm and Natural batting and measure 40 x 56.  They were quilted on my sewing machine, probably with a purple thread.

Leftovers from those brightly colored FQs went on to star in an other quilts (No Blue Geese in my Tropical Garden comes to mind).  And that purple batik?  I’ve used it in several quilts as well, having gone back and finally buying a bolt of it.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been stalking Craigslist — looking for garage and rummage sales that I think will lead to shirts I can use in my quilting.  The sale Thursday I found through Thrifty Nickle – an old fashioned paper listing, but yesterday’s sale was from Craigslist.  A thrift store going out of business.

Given the number of shirts I’ve picked up this week, I think I’ll make more blocks and to my Checkerboard Plaid quilt borderless.  As for what I’ll do next with these shirts it’s a toss-up between Bargello Plaid found in Bonnie Hunter’s Adventures with Leaders & Enders or a string quilt.  Did you see the Heartstring quilt Mary showed this morning?

Tonight during Bonnie Hunter’s QuiltCam, I finished the last of the Checkerboard Plaid blocks.  I will leave them on my design wall and switch them around until I find an order that I like.  Then it will be on to the border — maybe.

This morning my husband took a call from the sewing machine repair shop saying my stitch card had been shipped.  Once it arrives I have a backlog of things that need the zigzag, blind hem and blanket stitch that need to be done sooner than later.

If I’m working on the applique, that will give me a chance to cut more pieces for my spool blocks.

There is only one more complete set ready to go.  There are 86 spools in the container and one more competed spool under the needle.  I would like to have somewhere between 288 – 512 spools by mid-August.  The vast difference in number has to do with the size of the quilt I’ll be able to make.

I was off work today, so this afternoon my husband and I ran some errands together.  We stopped at a church rummage sale and I picked up a few more shirts.  Only one is a long sleeve shirt, but the fabric is wonderful!

We ended our wandering at a big outlet mall for our walk.  I can’t find the distance around the mall on their website, but I’m making a guess we walked 1 1/2 miles based on the steps on our pedometers.   There was no way we could have walked outside – the wind was blowing something fierce.