Last week, towards the end of the week, we went to southern Poland - actually about a 4 hours drive each way. I agreed that I would go along with my husband to keep him company.

But I didn’t promise to drive!

Of course not! It’s not THAT far. It’s just that we’ve gotten a bit “slaby” (weak) in our older age. We used to travel for hours and hours at a time. Now we don’t like to do that.

I took apart shirts.

Yes, I did. All the way there, and most of the way back I cut up shirts.

This is what my work looked like. I did just throw the cuffs, plackets and various pieces into a bag to be stripped of buttons at a later date.

So…you say…”You FELL OFF THE WAGON! How come you have so many shirts again?” Well, I didn’t. Not really. I didn’t buy these, nor did I set foot inside a second hand store to get them!

It’s just that lately I’ve been given a bunch of shirts and things by various people around me here in Poland. Yes. GIVEN. How could I turn it down?

I couldn’t. I’ll bet most of you quilters couldn’t either.

Quit feeling smug.

( I would like to say that for years we were in a situation here that we were the givers and very rarely the given to. It was expected - after all - the rich Americans can afford it. People came to us for loans, for help - money- , for work, etc. It feels wonderful to be treated as an equal and be on a give and take status with at least some Polish people. I am honored to be gifted these treasures by local ladies! To me it means a lot more than simply shirts.)

So, this is how much I got taken apart.

And because I know that you are curious what these things really look like, here are a couple of other pictures.

I know that sometimes people run out of “lights” when they are working with their fabrics. They end up with a lot of mediums and darks. However, when doing something like this, I end up with a disproportionate number of lights. As you can see:

I took some reusable bags and as I took the shirts apart, I tried to fold them into little piles and put them down in the bag. I filled up 2 nice big reusable grocery bags that I bought here in Poland with cut up pieces and 1 bag (it’s actually a Joann Fabrics bag) with “other stuff”.

I used my nice new Kai scissors/shears which is the only reason I could work that long without getting a blister on my cutting hand. Seriously, before I could work for about a half hour and I started getting a pink spot on my right thumb where the scissors hit the hand. Not this time. I had no problem with working for 3-4 hours at a time. My arms/shoulders got tired of the horsing around the shirts in the front seat before my thumb felt anything.

However, one thing…I probably have almost this many still to cut up. Yes, I have been given quite a few lately to work with.

However………..

I noticed something quite interesting as I was taking these pictures and placing the fabric on the table according to light/dark and by color.

What do you see?

Yes. Exactly. And I did not go and pick them out.

I am blessed.

Oh okay….

I suppose it’s confession time.

Remember the lady I made the quilt for out of her dad’s shirts? (This one - Random Act.)

I had no idea she had a friend who has a second-hand shop here in Poland and regularly gets bags of clothing from her friend that hasn’t sold.

We talked and she is going to give me the shirts from them. I told her I could use the wovens, generally. She actually asked me, though - I didn’t ask her for the shirts.

So far she has given me two or three (big) bags of shirts. Also, I have found another new friend who has found me some shirts and other clothing items (from that freecycle/zero waste group) - some really nice ones!!! Plus, a neighbor lady sent over with her son a few pieces of second-hand items (bedding) that I could use. Plus, I did answer one more ad on the freecycle group for a set of men’s shirts. A couple of the ones you see here are those. (There wasn’t enough variety to actually make that lady a quilt, though.) I just added them to my collection at the time. I had just finished Random Act 2 and wasn’t up yet for a Random Act 3.

I also did volunteer to make a bargello for the lady who is giving me so many shirts - and she wants to learn how to make one! So, maybe we will have another quilter coming our way here in our town!

She has two very small children, so am not sure how to go about doing this…but she is seeing that there are a lot of possibilities with these things. Right now the desire is just starting. We’re going to use these shirts - she wants gray as the main color and navy blue as the secondary one. So…I think I’ve got enough now. Now the fun will start as I work on getting the grays in order.

Here are the shirts in the navy series I’d like to use :

OK. End of confession. Now you know why I really have so many shirts!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store!