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.

Tonight there was more walking — this time at a local park.  According to the city’s website the outer walking path is 1.48 miles and the inner path is 1.04 miles.  We did something in between as we veered off the outer loop to read the historical markers for the Battle of Westport then followed the inner loop back to the car.

After dinner, I worked on my Checkerboard Plaid blocks  I see now from the picture that I’ll be moving them around after I get them all made.  I still have no idea what I’m going to use for the border, but I think I’m going to quilt it with navy thread.

It’s only 10 PM, but I’m exhausted.  Immediately after I got off work, DH and I went to a local shopping center and walked.  We figure it’s about 1/4 of a mile around the shops and we made 4 loops.

Afterwards, I fixed dinner, then we watched DWTS and I sorted through a couple of bins of quilting magazines to see what I could clear out.  It wasn’t until the debate came on that I sat down in front of my sewing machine.

I pieced six blocks while listening to the debate.  The rest are kitted up and ready to stitch.

We plan to walk again tomorrow, then I’ll sew.  14 more blocks to go.

I’ve finished piecing all of the block pieces tonight.  Tomorrow I’ll layout the blocks and start assembling the blocks.

There’s nothing on my design wall proper but a few threads.  Since I finished both the Irish Chain and Stained Glass quilt tops last week, I was at a loss on what to work on next.  I could have pulled out my list of things which I would like to finish by the end of the year, but instead, I pulled out my shirts.

Back in early July, I restrained myself from cutting into my shirts to start Checkerboard Plaids.

It is from Evelyn Sloppy’s 40 Fabulous Quick-Cut Quilts.

This weekend I resisted no more and made a good headway on my units required for the quilt top.  I still need to make the strips with two plaids and one muslin center before I can start working on the blocks.  Turns out I didn’t have enough dark shirts, but I found a few homespuns in my stash that I was able to work into mix.

Oh, and other good news — I found the missing spool blocks when I was cleaning up the sewing room.  I also cut a few more.

Check out the links over at Patchwork Times to see what’s on others design walls this morning.

This past week I finished my Scrappy Irish Chain top and we pulled the binding for Syd’s quilt from my stash.

Fabric Added Since Last Report: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date:  96.302 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report: 4.211  yards
Fabric Used to Date: 78.488 yards

Net Used for the year -17.814 yards

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

It was just past midnight when I stitched the last seam of my Scrappy Irish Chain.  I followed Bonnie Hunter’s Happily Scrappily Irish from her book Adventures with Leaders & Enders.  The top currently measures 68 x 83 so I don’t know if I’ll add a border or simply quilt and bind it.

I’ve mentioned a couple of times lately that my sewing room is a disaster and needs cleaning.  But the question — Is working on these three projects procrastinating or advancing the cause?

Project # 1 – This is Irish Chain I’ve been working on for a while.  Essentially I have 9 more seams and then I’m done with the top – unless I decide it needs borders.  Stitch those 9 seams (4 sets are pinned in the picture) and I can put away the quilt tops and clean up the scraps – even if I does need borders because I’ll have to think on it a while.

Project # 2: This is Diamond links. Way back in January, I started quilting this quilt.  I can’t remember what happened — ran out of bobbin thread maybe? — anyway, I took it off the machine and brought it home.  I need to quilt about 2 1/2 rows of blocks plus the border.  Not to mention rip out some stitching.  I did the ripping during lunch.  This project, along with fabric for the binding and a couple of pillowcases,  has been stuffed in a laundry basket which I keep shifting around the room.  If I get it done, it can go to its forever home and the basket down to the basement.

Project #3: My scrap basket.  I love Bonnie Hunter’s Scrap User System.  I finished cutting up my scraps a couple of years ago and then kept them cut for about 18 months.  Then there was The Challenge and keeping up with my scraps just wasn’t a priority.  So for the past 18 months, they’ve been accumulating.  This is another basket that keeps getting shuffled around the room.

Admittedly, this is not all that I’ve been doing.  I’ve actually have been doing ‘real’ cleaning.  I can actually see bits and pieces of the cutting mat on my cutting board and the piles are not quite as high as they were earlier in the week.  The extra sewing table was cleared — of course now it’s got miscellaneous office supplies and computer parts on it.  The room feels bigger/cleaner — but in reality part of that is simply because I’ve just shifted some boxes/crates around.

I’m going to do cut up the scraps I’ve pressed then see about finishing the Irish Chain.  If the Irish Chain is finished and I’m only using it to procrastinate, let’s get it done so I won’t have it to distract me.

The stained glass top is now finished.  It was made on my Genie and was supposed to be my take along project, but it got bumped up when I started having issues with matching seams on my Irish chain.

I’m open for suggestions on how to quilt it — not that it’s very high in the queue.  Of course that could change if I figure out how I’m going to quilt it.

The best news is that I will have yardage figures for next week’s stash report.  I just realized that I’ve already counted this fabric.  🙁  Now to try to straighten up my sewing room.  It’s a disaster.