Thrifting Solutions

Having too many projects going at the same time left me unwilling to start another until I finished one, so I waited to jump on my June tote for my calendar project. I also had a problem to solve with the fabric remnants I wanted to use for it, in that I needed complimentary solid fabric to top it on both sides. I have very little of that in my stash, and no fabric stores near me except Hobby Lobby (where I won't shop), so I decided to thrift the fabric.

After we walked a park in Lady Lake I stopped by a thrift store across the street and found some excellent candidates: queen sheets and pillowcases. The pillowcases were $1.00 each, and the sheets were $4.00 (blue) and $2.00 on sale (green), for a total of $8.56. All of them are in new condition.

Why do sheets work so well as fabric? A flat queen sheet is 90" X 102", which is almost three yards of 90" fabric. Try to buy that new for a couple of bucks. You do have to trim off the top fold and seams, but that only takes off a couple of inches.

After laundering my finds I tested them against the print fabric. Here are the two pillowcases. I was leaning toward the off-white as a strong contender.

I also liked the green sheet very much. That said, the blue sheet picked out some little patches of water in the print, and was the prettiest next to it.

I settled on the blue for my top fabric.

Here is a rough idea of how I intend to piece it together for the tote, which I'll do tonight.

My enthusiasm for my calendar project is another problem I'm wrestling. I just don't want to quilt, sulky thing that I am, because I can't do it the way I like to any longer. I am working on my bad attitude and meditating on solutions. In the meantime, finding a way to thrift a solution for this month's specific problem has boosted my spirits a lot. Stay tuned to see if I can get the tote finished before July arrives.

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