StrayCat

Podunk Princess posted a picture of her recycled men's shirt quilt on October 31, 2016, and got me to thinking. I'm all for recycling with the beautiful colors and designs in thrift shop clothes, but I get a shiver of apprehension because of the textures and content of the materials. I've seen beautiful old pieced quilts, well used, where one particular color had pretty much disintegrated.
For those of you with experience in this area, please give input. A few starter questions: what happens when you use a variety of fabric textures/thread counts/content; how does rayon behave for piecing; does it help to use stabilizer, and on which fabrics; what about 100% wool that has a stabilizer solidly affixed to it?

PaperPrincess

I think you just have to make a judgement call on how the fabric will wear. Personally, I'm not concerned that I quilt I make will last forever. F&P recently had an informative show on piecing with diverse fabrics:
http://www.fonsandporter.com/videos-...native-fabrics
They talk about stabilizers. Ideally, you would like the fabrics you join together to be similar weights, so you would stabilize the thinner one. Same with something that's really stretchy.
As far as the bonded wool, I remember when it was introduced in the 60's and we were all horrified. I'm still horrified! Wool is supposed to drape! What I do is deconstruct the garment, then use an iron with a lot of steam and press on the side with the fusible. Usually, this will reactivate the glue and you can peel it off. You need to work in sections. This may also make the wool shrink, but i'm going to felt it in the washer, so for me it's not an issue. You can also use this technique if you are fortunate enough to get one of those fabric sample books. Lots of great fabric, but they are often stuck to a piece of paper.

Kassaundra

I love using unexpected fabrics (not 100% quilting cotton) in my quilts / projects. I almost never will use the light weight rayon type fabrics though. Neck ties are a great "silky" type fabric most have a good weight to them. That old "70's double knit" makes awesome especially backing fabric it wears like iron and will NEVER wear out. Washing at the same temps and conditions you will be washing the quilts in is very important to make sure how it will lauder. I know this is heresy but I really like the poly / cotton blend mens shirts (mens b/c you get bigger sections of fabric then womens, but womens also for some fancy fabric) as much as the 100% cotton men's shirts.

StrayCat

Good tip on the bonded wool, PaperPrincess. I have some thrift store sport coats, and thought I could just leave the bonding on since nobody can see the backside anyway, but I wanted to try shrinking some, too, so I will be trying the steam iron approach. Kassaundra, I have a bunch of rayon Hawaiian shirts and am still collecting them; I would like to know why not to use it, and how light is "light weight"? And thanks for the "tie" tip, as I have a collection of maybe 100 also, but have not deconstructed them as yet.

Kassaundra

Straycat, the rayon I have seen is quite flimsy and doesn't wear well. It would be a nightmare the keep straight in smaller pieces and even if "backed" I have serious doubts about how long it would last in a quilt. And I HATE the feel of fabric that is backed w/ a fusible.

Tartan

Most pieced quilts are made with 100% cotton shirts. Look for shirts that don't look worn and watch Bonnie Hunter's video on how to debone a shirt for fabric.
I hve used all kinds of materials for wall hangings if the colour and texture is right because I will not be washing them by machine. I vacuum and if necessary, air outside.

cashs_mom

I once pieced a jacket with rayon batiks. It was very hard. If you are going to use rayons, you just have to realize that they will probably not be very accurate and may not wear well. If you are okay with that, you can use them. Since I was making a jacket that wouldn't have any heavy wear and was a simple design that was okay with much less than perfect accuracy, it worked. I don't think I'd ever try to use it in a quilt.

Polyester double knit frightens me so I don't think I'd ever use that either lol

quiltedsunshine

I'm making a memory quilt with my Step-father's poly cotton shirts. They're pretty thin. If I was sewing them together, I'd probably put a fusible interfacing behind each piece. But I'm putting them in a denim quilt, where the denim is sewn together, and the shirt fabric is held down by the denim. So I feel like it's pretty secure. I also feel like, in this type of quilt, I could put about any fabric in with the denim. Here's a picture.

ptquilts

that is a nice quilt and a great solution to the thin fabric problem.

toverly

I like your diamond spin on the jeans quilt, good job quilted sunshine.