Mother use to look for tuff fabric. Such as work clothes and we made rugs from them. I liked it when we use to take the string from hay bales and braid them and sew them in an oval for outdoor rugs to wipe the evidences of the milking barn off our shoes. I think it would be another neat project for cold winter nights. We did not have TV in the 50's and part of the 60's so we found things to do and it always had to be something "productively useful." That was my mom's reference.
Blessings, Ruth