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I wear old clothes when doing yard work or woodworking or metalworking --- by the time I'm done, they're only suited to be cut up for rags, and I have a jar whi

I wear old clothes when doing yard work or woodworking or metalworking --- by the time I'm done, they're only suited to be cut up for rags, and I have a jar which I clip the buttons into --- if a zipper is YKK and still in good condition I'll cut around it in case I need to replace a zipper on something. I've tried to convince my wife to take up quilting, but she has zero interest, and I don't have the time.

jvanderbot 4y ago
Nice clothes -> Gym clothes / shop clothes -> sleepwear -> rags (can spend years here) -> trash I've got trashbags full of old sheets and t-shirts, and they're so useful for random straining, cleanup, covering tools, degreasing, painting, etc.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  This exactly (although I tend not to sleep in former shop clothes, too much grease in my shop). Nothing beats a t-shirt for cleaning a bicycle chain, though (and they make perfectly good handkerchiefs too).
viburnum 4y ago
Clothes are generally difficult to quilt with because the fabric stretches too much.
- flappyeagle 4y ago
  Woven fabrics like those on dress shirts should be ok
nerb 4y ago
you could take up quilting yourself
kaybe 4y ago
I'm honestly not sure it is a good idea to use really old clothes for quilting. The fabric ages and becomes thinner and thinner, and a quilt is a lot of work. Do you want to produce a quilt out of already weak material?
- compiler-guy 4y ago
  Historically, quilts were exactly how one used clothes too old and too worn to continue as clothes. One takes the less worn parts and makes a quilt with those. For example, this fact plays an important part in Alice Walkers's short story, "Everyday Use" https://www.lonestar.edu/13778.htm https://www.lonestar.edu/13778.htm =-=-= These quilts were “pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee “(76), both figures in family history who, unlike the present Dee, took charge in teaching their culture and heritage to their offspring. The quilts themselves are made up of fragments of history, of scraps of dresses, shirts, and uniforms, each of which represents those people who forged the family’s culture, its heritage, and its values. Most importantly, however, these fragments of the past are not simply representations in the sense of art objects; they are not removed from daily life. What is most crucial about these quilts—and what Dee does not understand—is that they are made up of daily life, from materials that were lived in.

jvanderbot 4y ago

Nice clothes -> Gym clothes / shop clothes -> sleepwear -> rags (can spend years here) -> trash I've got trashbags full of old sheets and t-shirts, and they're so useful for random straining, cleanup, covering tools, degreasing, painting, etc.

InitialLastName 4y ago
This exactly (although I tend not to sleep in former shop clothes, too much grease in my shop). Nothing beats a t-shirt for cleaning a bicycle chain, though (and they make perfectly good handkerchiefs too).

viburnum 4y ago

Clothes are generally difficult to quilt with because the fabric stretches too much.

flappyeagle 4y ago
Woven fabrics like those on dress shirts should be ok

nerb 4y ago

you could take up quilting yourself

kaybe 4y ago

I'm honestly not sure it is a good idea to use really old clothes for quilting. The fabric ages and becomes thinner and thinner, and a quilt is a lot of work. Do you want to produce a quilt out of already weak material?

compiler-guy 4y ago
Historically, quilts were exactly how one used clothes too old and too worn to continue as clothes. One takes the less worn parts and makes a quilt with those. For example, this fact plays an important part in Alice Walkers's short story, "Everyday Use" https://www.lonestar.edu/13778.htm https://www.lonestar.edu/13778.htm =-=-= These quilts were “pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee “(76), both figures in family history who, unlike the present Dee, took charge in teaching their culture and heritage to their offspring. The quilts themselves are made up of fragments of history, of scraps of dresses, shirts, and uniforms, each of which represents those people who forged the family’s culture, its heritage, and its values. Most importantly, however, these fragments of the past are not simply representations in the sense of art objects; they are not removed from daily life. What is most crucial about these quilts—and what Dee does not understand—is that they are made up of daily life, from materials that were lived in.