Repurpose men's shirts into a quilt

I supported our local op shop (charity shop) by buying some men's shirts.
"Lovely shirts." said the lady.
"Yes," I replied, "But I'm only going to cut them up!"
My man has to be attending a wedding or funeral to wear a proper shirt so there is nothing for it, but to cut them up and add them to my fabric stash.

They have to be 100% cotton with no nasty armpits and not too much wear.  Stripes are great, but a small check works well too.  Wash them well in hot water, then press them and cut out the collars and cuffs and any seams.  I add the buttons to my button jar.  Then I just use the fabric as I would any other. For $4 a shirt I get heaps more fabric than a fat quarter which typically sells for around $7 in New Zealand.

Shirt fabrics are great to increase your stash of 'man' fabrics.  You know, the fabrics that aren't too girly or floral and work well in quilts you're making for men.  There is at least four shirt fabrics used in this log cabin quilt.

And you can get both light and dark shirts, which help when you're making a quilt that needs light and dark fabrics.  I think I nailed the tonal contrast in this one!

This quilt is going to get bigger soon.  I have more blocks than this and my sister has been working on doing some too.  With any luck she'll post them to me shortly and I can work on getting the top together.  (Are you listening Sis?)

Friday Fleashop Finds

I can't think of a word to alliterate with Op Shop so Friday Fleashop Finds it will have to stay for now. 

Friday is my quilting-in-the-morning with a friend day, errand day, grocery day, farm store day and, if I can squeeze it in, a browse around the Op Shops in our little rural town.

Again, I checked out the fabrics and remnants that they have, but nope, yucky polyester curtain linings for the most.  But then I walked past the men's shirts and found this little (x-large actually) beauty.  100% cotton and the cutest stripe.  And I can cut the buttons off for my button jar.

My man's a bit rough to wear this, although I did hint he might look nice in it! 

So I vowed not to buy any new fabric in 2010, but this doesn't count right?  The only problem is, if I really examine the concept behind ethical consuming, reuse is all very well, but I'm still reusing a non-organic, unsustainably grown and processed shirt.  Urggh, sometimes it all makes my head hurt.  So I'm going to ignore that thought for a while and just be happy that I found a nice piece of cotton fabric for cheap for my stash and saved it from being chucked in a landfill and supported a local charity, all at once.

I also found more 1 litre Agee jars (heavy preserving jars) to add to my collection and a medium sized ceramic casserole dish, complete with glass lid.  It'll replace the one that my darling hubby broke last week.  And a bag of lemons.  I feel a lemon meringue pie coming on.

Do you have days like that at Op Shops?  Where you walk in and come out loaded, even when there was nothing on your list? 

Flea Market Finds

Okay, so we're kiwis here and it's more of an op shop find.

The hard work that someone put into all that stitching!  It's about the size of a placemat and I'm thinking it would make a very cute bag.  I had a look for pieces of fabric (research only!) but there were only nasty polyesters and some really, really ugly nylons.  So my plan to make quilts out of only thrifted materials is not really a goer.  I'll carry on looking though, you never know what you might find......like these!

What funky cutlery!!  There were only a few pieces, but I thought they would make great additions to my camping cutlery box - too distinctive to get mixed up with the mother-in-laws.  But my kids dived on them with glee and have been using the 'pretty forks' for every meal since I brought them home.