Mad for plaid

In my normal, monkey-mind way (to use a Buddhist expression), I seem to hop between projects, usually just before one is completed. If I have a quilt down to the borders, I will get distracted and cut out another project. No finishing what I have started first, not for me! Why have one project going when you can have four? I finish them all eventually.

Last night my attention was captured by an all-plaid quilt in the same book as "On Golden Pond" that I'm finishing now (only three sides of the border to go). It was set on point with alternating Shoo Fly and Hole in the Barn Door blocks surrounded by plaid triangles, with a pieced border, and it was completely made of plaids. It was adorable. And I have a storage box of shirts from the thrift store that hadn't been cut into yet. So what did I do?

Yup. I cut out a quilt this morning.

In my defense, I woke up feeling lousy, with aching knees and a sinus headache, and the thought of my planned morning (treadmill time, jump in the car and take it for state inspection, hit the grocery and the credit union on the way home) just wore me out thinking about it.

So I didn't do it.

It's one of the lovely perks of being retired. Having a bad morning? You don't HAVE to do anything you don't want to do (with some limits). So I didn't.

I was happy to find that my blue on white tattersall thrift store shirt was large enough to cut out all the backgrounds for the blocks, lending a bit of order to a scrappy design. That is something I use often - a single background fabric in all the blocks of an otherwise jumbled color quilt. And I had enough shirts and homespuns to include 28 different plaids in the quilt, which makes a nice variety. I also have enough left that I can piece the backing if I want.

So here are a couple of the little cuties: