Preparing for my 100 day project

 The "official" 100 Day Project begins on February 13 this year. I have really enjoyed doing this the last two years. You can read about my bojagi project (2020) and my monster project (2021) here on the blog. Both of these focused on learning a new skill, which I thoroughly enjoyed. This year, I'm heading in yet another direction.

I was inspired by the phenomenon of the Great Resignation of 2021, where Americans resigned from their jobs en masse, initially as a covid response then later as a general strike against workplace policies/pay and government replies. I decided to make a quilt in response to this issue. Also, it is not lost on me that while everyone was resigning from the work force this past year,  my husband had the opportunity to return to work in a career he loves, after a long stretch of unemployment. There is irony there for sure.

First step was to gather supplies. I purchased 15 mens dress shirts from Goodwill and another thrift shop, where they had symbolically been left to die as their owners resigned from jobs.

I tried to get a good mix of colors, in stripes, plaids and solids. My pal Chris quickly pointed me to the larger mens sizes where I could get more fabric for the same price. With deep discounts, a senior discount and some good searching, I ended up spending a little over $5 for each shirt.

This is what 15 shirts looks like! I washed them all as soon as I got home. Many had holes or stains which was not a problem for me.

I carefully cut them up, salvaging as much fabric as I could. With fronts, back, sleeves I was able to get approximately 3/4 yard fabric from each shirt. Some of the larger shirts yielded even more.

I also saved as many buttons as I could! I'm always searching for dress shirt buttons to repair my hubbys shirts. These will come in handy!

My plan is to make one 5" improv block each day of the project. These will be random styles of block, as selected by my randomizer wheel.

I created this wheel using the Tiny Decisions apps on my phone. Sarah told me about this app and its will work perfectly! Every day I will spin the wheel and do what it tells me to do. Brilliant!

So, I'm ready! I have missed having a structured project to work on the last couple of months and can't wait to get started. Are you doing a 100 day project this year?