I recently came in possession of ooooooooooodles of sampler books, showing curtain, upholstery, etc materials. They are bound in heavy cardboard books, then hot glued and mile long heavy staples.

I have just used a box cutter to slice out some of them, rather than trying to remove the cover and staple - tried that - once was enough - I would rather sacrifice the couple inches under the binding! LOL

The books size from about 5X9 to 14X14.

My problem lies in that most of them have a medium weight cardboard glued to the edges (to keep it nice in the display book and it lists the manufacturer, style, color code, etc).

Anyone have an idea how to remove that glue (I tried and the paper/cardboard just split, leaving a very thin layer of impossible to get off paper)?

And a second question - how appropriate, and or easy/hard would it be to combine with cotton or some other fabrics to make quilts? Becuase the fabrics are so heavy, I think many of them could get really heavy fast.

One nice thing - all the coordinating fabrics are bound together, so there is no guesswork what goes together! :-)

I'm working on a project using exactly the kind of upholstry samples you're talking about. I haven't figured out an easy way to get the extra cardboard and glue off (yet) - so if you figure something out, -please let me know!. I was originally planning to try to make a throw-type quilt, tied, with a fairly high-loft batting - for snuggling on the couch with. But I decided to scale-down the project recently and I'm now planning to make some big square cushions instead.

The project is planned as a gift for a friend of mine, and I know she often has big groups of people over to her house and people end up sitting on the floor in her living room because she has a fairly small house - so I was thinking the cushions could be used on the floor when she runs out of chairs!

What I've done so far is cut and sewed the samples 4-patch style, except they weren't all the same sizes, and they were all rectangles, so my 4-patch squares aren't even or square. I'm going to make a square template and trim them all down to size, but have the seams "wonky" rather than straight. Then I'm going to set each 4-patch into a larger square by bordering it with other fabric scraps - heavier fabric than regular quilting cotton. Then I'll sew the squares together, and tie the sandwich together. I'm not sure how I'm going to bind them yet.

I'll post some pictures if I can find a couple of minutes to assemble the camera and the WIP!

Jan

What a coincidence!!! I just finished a top using the same. I also used ultra suede for the borders. I love to use unconventional fabrics to quilt. Experimentation is good.


Ellis' Granny B

I just got a bunch of them in the mail a few weeks ago. I got them really cheap. Im not sure what I will do with mine yet.
Judy in Ohio

Hopefully this is a better picture.

I have a book of them too but I think mine is like tapastry (?) fabrics.

A lady once gave me a small purse made from the upholstery samples, it was very durable and cute.

My gf had a lot of leftover upholstery fabric from a project. This is what she is doing with it....the triangles are the upholstery fabrics.

I love the strip piecing with this fabric. It looks great.

I recently was given a big box of upholstery samples. I used some of them in a wall hanging. I gave alot of them to a friend who is a teacher for her students to use in their art class.

I seen someone somewhere, can't remember where, who used them to make bags, purses!
:D

They make wonderful bags for shopping and purses.

I also used some of the lighter weights for berets for cancer patients. I lined them with either fleece or flannel and used fleece for the bands. As they said, they were "stylin'". They loved them.

One of my quilt clubs got donated a TON of those books once. We cut all the usable pieces up into strips and did strip piecing on foundation for the most beautiful quilts that looked like stained glass. I'm already buying up black fabric for one I hope to have on my bed someday!

I have close to 200 books of apholstery fabric and some tapestry. Here is a quilt I made with them.

http://www.quiltingboard.com/posts/list/17125.page

I don't wash fabric or do anything accept remove them from the book until I am ready to use them. For the quilt above, I could only get one usable square out of each page from the books because they shrank so bad when I washed them. I simply used my rotary cutter and cut the industrial glue and label off. I have not yet found a way to remove it without completely destroying the underlying fabric.

I find they make great kids quilts and can be tie tacked easily. Also, great for charm quilts or a quilt that would be used in winter or cold places because they are so heavy and warm. I used to hate even looking at those books, but now that I've made a few, I really like them. I make many a baby quilt with them at toddler size so the babies can use them when they are toddling around. I suggest 2 washings before stitching as they fray horribly and shrink A LOT.

Hope this helps.