Ideas for making quilts using heavier, non-cotton fabrics
 

My daughter gave me a *lot* of retired fabric samples from a company that sells fabric to designers (to be used in drapes, upholstery, etc.). These samples vary in texture, fabric content, weight, etc. and most have larger patterns than we typically find in quilting fabric. Some of the samples are pretty large - almost a yard - and others are smaller. There are repeats of most of them. Once before my guild received similar fabrics from a furniture store, and we used them to make bags for a local women's shelter. We may do the same with some of these fabrics too, but I'm looking for ideas for using them in quilts. I also wonder if any of you have made quilts from fabrics like this, and how did it work out?

You can make cloth trivets with them. I made a couple of them as Christmas gifts this past year. I found ironing board material at JoAnn's. I just outlined the floral pattern.

You could also just do a quilt-as-you-go-quilt this way with a solid fabric on back and used variegated thread for the quilting.
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i'm sorry if this is boring people...i seem to have put it on all week....but look at the centers...it's upholstery fabric... the effect is terrific because of the large scale...
[h=3]Double Wedding Ring from Cheryl Phillips' Book[/h]

Love the DWW Dee!!

Aside from that lovely piece, I'm thinking crazy quilt with a ton of embellishing n embroidery and bobbles and such.

Non quilt ideas: purses, throw pillows, place mats, and garment bags !! I personally would love to have a quilted garment bag made out of upholstry fabs!!!

I have used upholstery sample fabric in a few quilts. They turned out great, in fact the ones I made for my mom and mom in law are the envy of all their friends. My advice would be to choose a simple pattern and sort the samples by weight and fiber content, try to keep it the same in each article. Also plan on using something light weight for the batting and back or it could be too heavy. They make nice warm comfy quilts.

if you want to use the fabric for chairity quilts you might search on the web for "Ugly Quilts" These are sleeping bags given to homeless shelters. They usually want unusual fabrics. The term ugly is used because the quilts (sleeping bags) should not be the traditional pretty quilts but rather those that might be stold.

I have used it in my crazy quilting, with silk ribbon embroidery, and embroidery and bead work. I love the look I get from them.

I agree with the crazy quilt idea because traditionally you only need a fabric back and no batting. You ccould also try traditional patchwork but , if the fabrics are heavy just use a fabric back as well. There is a lady here in Pittsburgh who is a textile artist that sells these remnants for 3$ a bag when she is at one of our quilt shows-I am going to make pillows out of mine as well as use some of these faberics to mend a crazy quilt I adopted from the flea market sale from a quilt show. Good luck and don't forget to use heavy work needles!!!

I have used decorator fabrics in quilts. First make sure they are all able to be washed, some are dry clean only. I use large designs or a small scale design enlarged . The bulk of the seam allowances of home dec fabric can be very problematic in smaller work. Additonally alot of seams will add to the weight.
Since many home dec fabrics are larger scale prints, work with the larger scale pattern. A nice simple one can be a dissapearing nine patch but start with a larger square. Some of the most beautiful I have seen are just simple squares sewn together. My sister did a log cabin , but used 2.5 inch logs. It came out beautiful.
One last note do test the fibers to make sure you can iron/steam them during construction.
Home dec fabrics use paints and dyes that are rated for longer exposure to sunlight before fading than quilting cottons. The other side of that coin is.. most home dec dyes/paints are not rated very high for very much washing before fading.

Those are lovely. I love how you outlined the flower. I may even have some similar designs in my collection of fabrics. Thanks for the ideas.