Sewing from fabric cut from clothes ...have you?
By coffeebreak
@coffeebreak (17798)
United States
December 21, 2011 9:33pm CST
Fabric is so expensive these days! I swear...30 years ago it was dollar a yard or so! Now it is $10 a yard! I just don't know how people can afford to sew anymore! But, I keep looking and watch for sales and things like that. However...it occured to me today... what about a thrift store for fabric?
So I stopped at a large store ad they didn't have any fabric, but as I was looking at formal dresses with the intent to get one and alter it down to fit my GD's for a "dress up" dress (they dress up in clothes to be queens and princess etc) in seeing those full skirts...it came to me that maybe I could buy the dress and use the fabric in the skirt for quilting. I would be limited to just what skirt yardage would be, but I think that I could make a few squares out of it and then place them in the quilt at different places...like if I can get 4 like squares out of the skirt...those could be the four corner squares or something like that. Or maybe cut X number of 12 inch squares from the skirt and then I could have the choice of numerouse smaller squares that could be cut from that 12x12 one...and use them as I could create.
My question is...have you ever done this before? Or even used skirt yardage to cut out a dress for a small child or something that would take just that limited amount of yardage? What has been your experience and what have you found to be more trouble than it is worth and what has been the "perfect" thing?
1 person likes this
6 responses
@coffeebreak (17798)
• United States
23 Dec 11
You mean you are my grand daughter? I recycle so many things. I even save certain "coool" jars for the kids to catch bugs in and fill with dirt and things like that. And dry sheets...great for tracing for patterns. And I put them in my drawers and when the scent seems to go away, I toss them into the dryer and they work just fine! I don't really like the smell on my clothes that much so this works perfect for me! I have just gotten back into sewing. Practically everything in my house at one time was handmade! But I got a new machine and have so many things planned for next year to make.
1 person likes this
@coffeebreak (17798)
• United States
23 Dec 11
Same for me. I have several quilts I want to do and some drsses for my GD's...just bought some fabric for the little one...she loves Mickey and Minnie and I saw this red with black very large dots (circles) on it and thought "OOHHHH Mickey Mouse dress!", thinking that would be the full skirt and then a white top with black straps...but as I was washing it...it occured to me...Minnie's dress is red with WHITE dots/circles!!! Mickey has red pants! So I don't know now. Guess I'll make it and tell her it is a minnie dress and she'll like it anyway! I also have a guest bedroom I want to decorate (just bought this house, my first house, this summer!) and some painting to do too!
@marguicha (222844)
• Chile
22 Dec 11
I always made my daughters´ blouses from the old shirts that he no longer used. I believe in recycling as long as I can. The quilt idea sound wonderful to me. I used to save all the scraps of material (new and old) to make quilts, lampshades, you name it. I gave a lot of them to a younger person when my eyes grew worse.
@coffeebreak (17798)
• United States
9 Jan 12
Yes...so many uses for a single garment. I sure wish I had been able to keep the scraps from my daughters clothes I made her. That would have been a quilt worth keeping!
@JoyfulOne (6232)
• United States
22 Dec 11
Isn't it just incredible what fabric costs anymore?! Yes, I have done that kind of thing before. More when my girls were little, and less now that they're adults with their own homes. I've also bought long dresses, and skirts, and then used that fabric to make other dresses, skirts or tops. I've done block quilting from woven men's sport jackets to make simple quilts. For that it's mostly natural fibers or wool (I never use polyester for clothing or quilts...I just don't care for it.) One thing I do sometimes is to get sheeting when it's on sale. I've made, and lined, almost all of the curtains in my house. I got twin bed flat sheets at Walmart for $3.00 on sale, and each flat twin sheet worked into 2 panels to make the curtains with. Considering my laundry/plant room has 6 different windows around it, it was definitely the inexpensive way to go lol.
I've also seen at the bigger Salvation Army stores that they usually have a section where there's material. I've gotten some good deals there too. My one Uncle was fond of wearing red, or green, ties. When he passed, I remade those into a really cool Christmas tree skirt with pointed edges. When his wife passed, I made each of the kids lacy satin pillows as a rememberance. (Heaven knows nobody would ever fit into that dress!) It worked up nice into christening gowns, bed pillows, and baby caps. Besides being thrifty, it's kind of fun to come up with alternatives:D
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@coffeebreak (17798)
• United States
23 Dec 11
Walmart has single sheets? I have looked and looked and don't find anything but the sets. I want just the flat sheet! I have used those as backing too..and curtains and other things. Used to get them at Mervyn's until they went BK. I guess I"ll ask next time I am at Walmart. I haven't seen them, but maybe just not finding them!
I'm going to go back to the thrift store and check out further those big skirts and see what I can do with them
Joannes has a sale next weekend for broadcloth solids at $1.99 a yard so I will stock up!
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@JoyfulOne (6232)
• United States
23 Dec 11
I don't know about other Walmarts, but ours here has a huge variety of colors and patterns, and all the different sizes. They do have the packaged sets, but I always like to buy just the flat sheets (unless they're actually for a bed and not some other sewing project.) Gosh, ours has so many colors to choose from, it's really great!! Try Walmart online, if you punch in your zip code, they can tell if they have them at that store, and if not, they can always send them to that store. I did that once, free of charge and came in with their regular deliveries. (Again, don't know if that's just our Walmart, or all of them.) Thanks for the tip about Joannes! That's a great price and I'm going to have to check that out:-)
1 person likes this
@coffeebreak (17798)
• United States
23 Dec 11
Thanks for the Walmart tip. I'll see about that. I'd be HAPPY if they'd have just the flat sheets! I have done the "ship to store" thing with other stores...saves shipping charges.
@drannhh (15219)
• United States
29 Jan 12
Yes, I certainly have done that. I have bought articles of clothing to reshape into crafts and resized blouses, dresses, pants, whatever. We used to buy muslin fabric to make "drafts" of difficult projects to see how the fit was before cutting the expensive cloth, but now muslin costs way too much, so sometimes I buy an old bed sheet to make the pattern.
They do not always have the exact thing I am looking for when I try to cut corners by going to the thrift store, but when they do it is certainly a lot better price to pay than remnants cost these days.
Fortunately for me, too, I live near one of the few Walmarts that still has a fabric department, so I can get all kinds of good yardage for a buck or two. I think maybe for quilting you could find some good fabric in the back of men's shirts, too.
On thing I like a lot about using thrift shop clothing to remake is that since it has already been washed a few times, you can see how the fabric holds up in use.
1 person likes this
@coffeebreak (17798)
• United States
29 Jan 12
Yeah, I just moved and Walmart isn't to close but not to far, and I go and just look for what is around a buck an yard and most often...I can use it for something so I buy couple yards! I have also found that the quality of some of the fabs there is better than those at Joanne's Craft where they have large fab section! I just found a large thrift store also, and every wednesday it is 25% off the whole store, so I go every week and check out the bedding area and often find yardage.
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@coffeebreak (17798)
• United States
30 Jan 12
I only shop there on sales and with 40-50% off coupon. Problem is.. they always have 40% off most everything in the store anyway and the coupon is only good for regular priced item! But their fabric sales aren't that great other than about every couple months they have broadcloth for $1.99 a yd insteadof it's regular $4-$6 a yd. Problem with that is...although broadcloth, it is a thin broadcloth and not suitable for quilting! Guess I have to get the dress patterns out for my grand daughters!
@cotruelove (1016)
• Denver, Colorado
25 Dec 11
It doesn't surprise me that it is your posts that I'm answering. We have a lot in common like writing and crafts. I have bought fabric from thrift stores, and I've used bed sheets from thrift stores and yard/garage sales for quilting. Skirts can also be good for fabric and some shirts. I'm also lucky to have a western clothes manufacturer's outlet and factory nearby where you can buy the left over fabric from them. It isn't only 12" squires you can get from odd shaped pieces of fabric, but applique pieces, triangles, etc. If you do piecing you will find many uses for small pieces of fabric. The thing I have found is to try to stay with cotton unless I want to make a crazy quilt. I have a bag of 1-1/2" squares right now to try mini-quilting from a cross-stitch pattern using 1/8" seams. The biggest issue I find is the wording "scant" 1/4" or 1/8" seams, because as a perfectionist, I find it hard like you do to get two pieces to come out perfect. But now days, I use Electric Quilt 7's computer program as my basis for a pattern for the square then print the square and place the fabric pieces on it and sew them together on the paper. It usually means I work with an 8" square rather than a 12". However, I remember my mom and aunt telling me, quilts are art and art is not always perfect proportions. As long as you square up the pieces, you will usually be fine. Today's fabrics are expensive but so are today's clothes. Like you, I do not buy any fabric unless it is on sale and then some of the prices are restrictive. No wonder that clothes are assembled in China and India where labor is cheap, because the prices are huge if they use normal labor costs in the USA.
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@cotruelove (1016)
• Denver, Colorado
25 Dec 11
hahaha......the reason my stash is so big, is I inherited a lot from mom and I've been in the same place 30 years. But I still need to down size it. I don't have a machine that imports patterns, I just design my quilts with EQ 7 (Electric Quilt 7) and then I can print paper blocks the size I use on the printer. The rest is sewing and cutting. I have essential tremors so drawing on paper is difficult for me, and the computer program lets me draw the blocks easily with straight lines etc. and lets me plan them with a look at how they will be. I can even import the .jpgs of my stash and get a real representation of the look. Just the way I do it.
1 person likes this
@coffeebreak (17798)
• United States
26 Dec 11
Lost me on all that computer stuff! I do good on computers, but this stuff... beyond me..at least now. Maybe later i'll learn it, but it is one of those things that I have to do it with my hands first or none of it will make any sense
30 years in the same place? I have moved 29 times in the past 34 years! I don't know what "stay for awhile" means! We followed construction jobs and then we'd have to move when they raised rent etc. I just bought this house this summer so now..maybe I will learn what "staying for 30 " means!
I have a secret problem tho...I just love looking at fabric that is all lined up and neatly folded and all in color patterns and such. LIke in this one fabric store..one wall is lined with calico's...just beautiful! I know, it's stupid, but a silly little thing I like! I'd love to have your stock and do that in the room! Better than any wall decoration!
@coffeebreak (17798)
• United States
25 Dec 11
Guess we do have alot in common! I have just gotten the idea about the clothes at thrift stores to use for fabric...where I used to live there were no thrift stores..well there was one, but it was nearly as expensive as Kmart! But where I amnow, I found a hUGE thrift store...supports a rescue mission to boot! But there were alot of long dresses there and that is what gave me the thought to use that as fabric. I was looking for fancy dress to alter down to make a "dress up" dress for my GD's when they come over they like to dress up and play queen and such!
I have used the flat sheets for curtains and pillow cases - one twin sheet makes four queen size pillow cases. To buy them it is 2 for $10! The flat sheet was $2.50! But that was when Mervyns was around. They have closed and I can't find flat sheets by themselves anywhere. Always in sets.And I liked using the sheet for the backing on a quilt..and for placemattes. Lot of uses for a sheet!
I am just not into using the computer for quilting issues. I see lot of the sewing machines connect to the PC for patterns and such..but I am just not there yet! I am just barely out of Pioneer day style! I machine sew/quilt...they did it by hand and I don't want to do it that way! But just not ready for computerized quilting anything!
I am hoping to make a scrap quilt. When I was sewing for my daughter, I made all her clothes from birth to 5th grade! I always intended to keep a square of fabric from each dress and make it into a scrap quilt..for her or me..just hte memories would mean so much to me...but in the moving all the time and in apartments and trailers nad storage...I was always having to "get rid" of non essentials...and scrap fabric was one of them. So I never was able to make that quilt. THat is one of the reasons why these t-shirt quilts mean so much to me! I have nothing from my childhood, and had to get rid of so much that my kids dont' have alot but have a few things and I want my grand kids to have as much as htey can. So these quilts have memories for them..and a quilt..they will always need/use no matter their age.
@beenice2 (2967)
• Sackville, New Brunswick
9 Jan 12
i like sewing. I can see you like quilting. i made my first quilt out of fleece for my younger one. Since then I've made 2 more, and planning to make more. I feel that I accomplish something when I sew something. My daughter won't wear anything else but what I'm making, very encouraging.
@coffeebreak (17798)
• United States
9 Jan 12
That is cool. I made my daughters clothes from birth to 6th grade. In the 5th, she asked for jean skirts and I didn't want to deal with denim as I was always afraid it'd mess up my machine with the thickness and all. But I bought her those. Then in the 6th grade she nicely asked for some "store bought" clothes and I granted her that..I thought she'd been great about not complaining and all with all the homemade clothes and probably kids were making fun of her as she wasn't wearing the newest and coolest fashions, and she was so nice to ask about it. So I stopped then. I thought she deserved that after being so good all along.
She has tho, "trained" her daughter in a style and that doesn't allow for homemade clothes from me! At first it hurt my feelings, but now, I guess there are more important things in life for me to get upset about! I just made her a beautiful quilt out of her t-shirts from her young life that meant something to her or showed a phase in her life so far and she loved it. So I guess all is not lost!
