I buy vintage sheets for the fabric. It's actually becoming pretty popular. Take a look at this AMAZING quilt made with mostly vintage sheets and linens. This is my favorite quilt of all time and I have been collecting fruit tablecloths to make one like it.
http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransso...ack-quilt.html
Also if you go to Flickr and search for vintage sheet quilts you will find a bunch. People even make purses or clothes out of them.
I have a ton of vintage sheets, but I have only used them in a few quilts so far. I just picked up a newer flannel sheet for the back of a quilt at our local Goodwill. $3 for a quilt back!! Yahoo!
I am really careful about the sheets I pick out- I tried to use too high of a thread count one time- like REALLY nice sheets- and every time my needle went into the fabric it made a little "puk" sound- like it was poking a hole. So don't go too high, but also don't go really cheap and get one that is poor quality either. I find that a lot of the vintage ones are perfect- and they are so soft. I did a blog post about some of my vintage sheets a week ago or so if you are interested or your friend is. Here is that link:
http://gitdownkitty.blogspot.com/200...ge-sheets.html
I have a nice quilt top put together for my king size bed and I am going to piece a back for it out of sheets- it's so big that a king size sheet won't cover it. People are always surprised when I say that a certain fabric is from a sheet- but that's because I am careful about which ones I buy. Even the ladies that work at my lqs are surprised.