craft

I keep seeing this type of fabric in some of the quilt patterns that I find online for free. However, I have no idea what it is or what it looks like.

KalamaQuilts

a broad question! recycled men's shirts is one answer, at least for quilters
My immediate idea is patterns used in shirts from the last half of the 1800s
https://www.fatquartershop.com/moda-...on-moda-fabric
white or cream background with tiny repeating patterns. Stunning neutrals with 1800s reproduction colored fabrics.

craft

Wow! I just took a look at the examples of jo morton shirting fabric. I didn't know that this is what shirting fabric was what shirting fabric looked like. Some of these prints also look like the fabric used to make a women's skirts and dresses from.

Thanks for showing and explaining this out for me.

KalamaQuilts

absolutely they were used in women's clothing too. I think ladies tops were called shirtwaists as the skirt and shirt ended at the waist. Easier to alter I expect or only wash one or the other, wash day was a huge undertaking.

quiltingshorttimer

Explanation is great. I did an internship MANY years ago at a local museum and we had tons of these dresses donated--the skirts were often very heavy made out of gabardine or similar fabrics, with a wide "mud" hem in the skirt as they often drug along muddy streets/sidewalks. The shirts were "shirting fabric" and could be washed much more often than the skirts (think only hand washing and wringer machines) so the woman was wearing a fresh shirt even if the skirt had only had the dried mud/dirt brushed off it. Most people did not have closets, much less closets full of clothing!

geevee

Recently I bought a 1 yard remnant of flannel shirting fabric and made a scarf with it, the only difference I noticed with it was a smoother/flatter nap, and didn't ravel as much when I wet/dried it to shrink it before sewing. I could see using it in a quilt, it had a very nice drape to it.

sewbizgirl

I love shirtings! They go so well as the lights or neutrals with civil war mediums and darks in quilts.

Cats8

quiltingshorttimer. Could you please explain what a 'mud hem' is? Does it detach?
Thank you.

craft

I was wondering the same thing Cats8.

quiltingshorttimer

Ok--a mud hem was a width of fabric,usually either the same as the skirt material or a lessor fabric of similar color, often with a stiff lining, that was attached inside the skirt--about 6-8" wide. It protected the underneath of the skirt and could be brushed clean and even replaced if it became worn out. It also weighed the skirt down so that it didn't get lifted by wind. What was really amazing about these "dresses" was the waist size! All of them seemed less than 25" --and the donated wedding gowns were tiny! 17-20" waists at the maximum--of course they often got married when they were mid-teens.
And almost all the clothing was handstitched, no zippers, just overlapping "pleats" with hooks or buttons. A great experience all around. We had to sew in labels with the accession # in each item and the clothing items were wrapped in acid free paper and laid into special acid free boxes with a "No Pest Strips M'Lady" (separated by acid free paper) for at least 6 months in order to kill any bug larva. Sure that today there is another way to do that--probably with a freezer, but this was a local museum.