Shirt Challenge

Last year Tracee shared with us a challenge her quilting group was having .... The Gisborne Quilters Great Shirt Challenge.....The group was sharing their shirts but we could join in cyberly and do our own thing...

Susan has helped me to keep my motivation going and last week she and friends had a wonderful reveal... Please go HERE and  look at the amazing creative quilts made from shirts

These are the shirts I started with... I bought the greens (I later changed that middle one to a plaid with red in it after the picture was taken) for $2 each at the op shop and the blues were old work shirts of my hubz (they had shrunk ... a bit like my jeans did!)

this picture shows the plaid I used and the enormous piles of blocks I got just from shirts....

I have been sewing secretly but now we can show off what we made....

Ta-da.... a picnic quilt ......

we could use one extra fabric so I had some large gingham in my secret hoarding place so I made the bunting (and binding) with that....

I had a few spare blocks so pieced a strip for the backing.....

it's not a good length for this table but it does look nice there.....

I did an all over swirl ... except the bunting was just outlined.... the backing was a piece from the op shop too for $4...

the wadding was the most expensive part!!!

I'm happy with our new picnic blanket...

Thanks girls and such lovely work from everyone

Righto, Gotto Go.... blogs to read, tea to make, procrastinating to do .....

FNSI and another birthday....

Wendy hosted us for FNSI even though she has had a very busy week  - thank you very much 

This time we had young widget over so sewing time was less than usual but I did finish off cutting up my shirts for the shirt challenge once he had gone off to bed...

... I did make a bit of a mess .....

I think that is the hard part of the shirt challenge, cutting seams, pressing, cutting into workable blocks....

..... meanwhile....

Another birthday I was late for (facebook should send reminders 3 weeks before!) is Christine....

we sew together in real life and I know she loves miniature and she loves soft and pretty

This piece is 10" square (total) and made from an old doily and put onto a plain pink background .....

... carefully sewn around every edge of the doily and then filled with little mini feathers

I marked a grid on the pink and did mini orange peel loops all over it...

... and finished off with some beads to add a little bit of bling....

... and added a scented candle ......

A little while ago Anthea was doing a clean up of some books... I put my name down for the Anni Downs book but lost out for being too slow.....

Imagine my surprise when this arrived in the post... the winner of the book, Jeneta, has opted to send it to me saying when she saw it she wanted to win it for me as she thought is was just the sort of thing I would like ....

I'm blown away.. thank you so much Anthea... and Jeneta... I can't wait to make something from it...  (I just love those little fat sheep on the hillside!)

It's the weekend... there are strong predictions of some good rain... I do hope they are right.... so far damp and cold and windy (for me that's like sleet!!!)

A gift, some binding and a challenge ......

How thrilled was I that Shez sent me one of her beautiful kitchen sets and a recipe book ....

it looks perfect in my kitchen and tonight there is chocolate self saucing pudding on the menu...

Thanks so much Shez (your work is so lovely and I love the colours and the pretty applique) ... it so cheers up my cooking workspace ....

I did the hand sewing of the binding on my quilt made from the Hello World range ...

I love it...

Tracee mentioned this shirt challenge a little while ago.... and I do love an 'upcycle' project so I could resist it...

THE GISBORNE QUILTERS GREAT SHIRT CHALLENGE

This one is being hosted by the Gisborne Quilters and is due to start this month ... there is still time to source your fabrics!

Hubz is due for some new work shirts (or so I think he ought to be) so I have used 3 of the old ones as they are all the same and purchased some more from one of the op shops ... (there is allowance to use an additional purchased fabric but I think I will keep that for a border .....)

I'm not that happy about the third from the left... not enough contrast so I may need to do some more hunting... in real life it doesn't look as bland...

There is also another challenge on if you're interested in something a bit more upmarket to recycled clothing?

Righto, Gotto Go..... shirts to chop up.... roses to prune ... and more binding to sew