I brought the barrel of strips into the house today...yes, they were in the garage. I really didn't think about what it was when I moved it out of my parents' house. I looked at all of them. There are reds and blues and browns and plaids...I'm thinking rustic log cabin. I would love to piece it on one of my treadles...not sure how practical that would be for a full size, but maybe for my practice doll-size quilt. I really want to do this. Thanks for all the input!

Your idea sounds great. I saw a quilt made out of wool suiting with decorator fabrics interspersed and it was gorgeous. Someone gave me some wool men's suit sample squares and I have been collecting decorator fabric. I pieced an entire quilt on my treadle. Cotton of course, but don't know why wool wouldn't work. Please keep us posted on your progress.

Can I ask, why do people say they wouldn't quilt it? Just tie it instead?

One of the first quilts I made was with wool cut from old coats. I Cut them all different sizes, depending on the size of the scrap I was working with, then using a long running stitich I outlined each square with a vine of leaves and flowers (very simple design), sewed them together into a queen size (it weighed a ton!) backed it with flannel and gave it to my son and his new wife. They are still using it and it gets washed a lot!

USually the thickness of wool fabric is so much thicker than cotton combined with the flannel backing that it is impossible to make the small quilting stitches in a rocking motion that hand quilters prefer. It is necessary to quilt with the stabbing motion of putting the needle through the fabric from the front, pullin the thread taut, then pushing the needle from the back to the front and pulling the thread taut again . It is not impossible to quilt, but harder to quilt than many like to do. This is the stitch that was most frequently used at a quilting bee when the sandwiched quilt was fixed in a frame and hang from the ceiling and all the ladies sat around it and quilted and talked. Also, if there is so batting, there is so real reason for quilting other than aesthetics. Tieing will keep the backing and front together quiet well enough to keep them from slipping during usage.

I could quilt it on my long-arm though, right? The wool is very light weight, not very thick. I guess I'll have to see what it looks like once I decide what to do with it. Maybe I could just use the long arm to tack it, instead of an all-over design.

I don't know about longarm quilting a wool quilt, but I've quilted them using 'big stitch' quilting....all had a wool top and backing with an old flannel blanket as batting. Quilted with crewel yarn.

The One I saw using men's suiting interspersed with decorator fabrics used metallic thread with a decorative stitch randomly placed. It was gorgeous and my guess was quilted on a DSM. it had Berber fleece as a backing and no batting.

Weren't most Amish quilt traditionally made with wool? You can make quilts from many different fabrics. All you have to do is look at a book of old quilts. There are quilts made from silk, velvet, wool, linen, and cotton. And these quilts were made before dry cleaning existed. If you want to make sure a fabric will work for quilting, make a sample quilt and wash it the way you plan to wash the finished quilt.

Depending on how much you have, you could make a wall hanging, that would really display the old wool. May I suggest that you go thru every piece and make sure the wonderful bugs have not had breakfast, lunch and dinner on the wool...would be horrible to start and not be able to finish. My most favorate pattern is the log cabin, and would be my first choice, second would be a diagonal strip. If you have tons and tons then make a quilt. i would recommend you wash before unless you are making just a wall hanging. If the strips are from old clothing, then you know they have been washed before. If not do some test pieces, see what happens with cold water...see what happens with hot, that would be like felting it, really tighting up the weave, my only worry would be the age and if it would survive....IMHO:p