chamby

A friend and I were just discussing this at lunch yesterday. When I was growing up my mom always had what was called rag bag. All of our old and out grown clothes went into this for making quilts. She never purchased fabric for the quilt tops. She only purchased the backing fabric. Grant you these were quilts for use and not the fancy ones you see these days.

quiltlin

I too use thrift store finds and "used-up" clothing. I leave the pieces as large as they come. I cute them apart at the sleeves, seams, and cut off the buttonhole parts and just leave the largest piece possible that way you're ready for anything. I find that if I cut them up I always need a piece that's larger than what I've cut.

newbee

I buy 100% cotton scrubs at thrift shops and cut them up for fabric. Every other week our Goodwills have a 50% off everything sale, so I can get scrubs for about $1.50 each. I get at least a half a yard or more of fabric and I find patterns that I don't see in the LQS. Also, because they are used, they have already been washed to death so no shrinking. I even made a nurse friend of mine a quilt made of scrubs. She loved it!! I say use what you've got--and think outside the box!

Judi in Ohio

Go to yahoo groups and put in Quiltville - Bonnie Hunter is the mistress of old clothes for quilts. You will love her site. You can visit her web site at www.quiltville.com.

sewmuchmore

I love the ideal about the scrubs I am going to keep my eyes out the next time I go to the Goodwill. I have seen some cute scrubs. But I never though of them at the Goodwill. Maybe I need to come out of the box more often :lol:

aneternalpoet

I have a friend, whose wife's father was tragically killed in December, just a few days before Christmas. My friend, Matthew, wanted me to make his wife/family a quilt using the father's old ( and some new ) flannel shirts, and cotton hankerchiefs ( the bandana kind ).. They live in Virginia, and though Matthew and I have known each other for soem years, we have never met in person - just online .. But as Matt explained the circumstances behind Doug's death, I knew I needed to at least try to make something out of the 30 plus flannel shirts, and as many hankerchiefs.. This photo is what those flannel shirts were, when Doug wore them. Each one , different in their useage, represented a father, husband, father in law, and grandpa's heart.. His family now, esepcially Matthew and Jessica, Caleb and Claire, have a memory quilt to wrap up in when they miss their pappa.. I was the blessed one to create this shirt, though it was like cutting up a persons life, and stitching it back together with my tears.. because I literally cried buckets when cutting apart each shirt, ripping off each button ( which were also used for parts of the quilt..
The body of the quilt top, are the shirts. The binding is from some of the hankerchiefs I cut into strips. And the smaller quilt, hanging in the other photo was the little memory quilt for Matt and Jess's two small children using the hankies which I cut into rectangles..

aneternalpoet

a thought about where to get those fabric sample books, is to go to a window store, an upholstery type shop/store, and ask if they have outdated books to either sell you, or give away. I found about 20 of these awesome sample books here in our small mountain town.. And I paid nothing.. she wanted to clear them out, since her design shop stays only in what the trends are.. she said to me that she would die buried in books if she didn't pass them along, or throw them away - GASP... worth checking out in your area..

Texaslady

Hetty, my mother and her mother used to do a quilt about twice a year. When we would come home from school, mom would say that "Grandma and her were going to do another quilt, and to clean out our closet." Since our clothes were all cotton material, it was easy since all they had to do was to wash it, cut the seams off, zippers out and buttons off (When there were some), and then decide what top they wanted to do and then cut the material into pieces as they needed them. They did not have a lot of log cabin pieces cut out or dresden plate pieces, they just left the pieces as big as possible and cut as needed. Mom had a large drawer that she could stuff the material she had, so she could save the material in an out of the way place. Mom always said that the quilts should be made out of all cotton, or if you were going to use another type of material, then the quilt had to be all the same for that quilt. Good luck!

hilda Vest

Go on-line and check out the Gee's Bend quilters. You'll see that they used only old clothing and their quilts are now in museums because of their beauty and creativity. There is an effort in the works now which encourages us to recycle many of the things we usually throw away.
I made a CrazyQuilt wall hanging out of old clothing and i cherish it. i included pieces from the dress I wore to my son's wedding; the blouse i wore to my Mother's funeral,etc.. It becomes very personal when you look at it.
Go for it!!

maxi

I made a bullseye quilt out of my daughters clothes. She loves finding things she had forgotten about. The back is some dress fabric I was going to make for her but never did.
I free motioned messages on the back and the front is so busy you can't tell til you turn it over.