Maria was talking about making a quilt out of all her old t-shirts. Which sounds super-comfy, plus an awesome bit of upcycling! If your family had enough old clothes/blankets etc. lying around, I think you could make a quilt practically for free; if you used more layers of material for the wadding instead of buying proper stuff for it [yes]

Well the problem is primarily that I have plenty of quilt batting, but not enough cloth. And I prefer to donate my clothes when I stop wearing them. There are too many people out there without enough clothing.

This discussion is very timely for me. I have a bunch of clothes that I've been hanging on to (years worth) that aren't nice enough to donate due to wear & tear/stains/etc, but still have salvageable fabric on them. I've just today been looking at the pile asking myself whether I'm actually ever gonna do anything with them. [lol]

hmmm that'd be a great use of old kids clothes! [eager]

For what it's worth, there's a (semi)local charity shop around here that is in an old Wal*Mart space (just to emphasize how big this place is). The way it works is they have racks and racks of clothes. 70% of the space is for racks of clothes. They get clothes and mark it with a special tag. Then as time goes on, they reduce the cost of items with that color tag until they're down to 50 cents for any item with that color tag. After that last week, the items with that color tag are boxed off and sent on (I guess to another store to see if they sell there). The money earned goes to the charities the group sponsors and the people (generally people getting back on their feet after drug addiction and so forth) who work at the store.

Anyway, just saying that so you know I'm not "taking anything away" from people who need it.

Now that I've established that - I used to buy clothes there for their cloth (and sometimes they have bolts or yards of fabric itself). Haven't made anything with them, but those people who can't afford to buy cloth from a store and don't have clothes of their own to upcycle could always find your nearest charity-sponsored/salvage store. Keeps those places in-business.

Aside from clothes, you guys should also think about using old bedsheets and tableclothes. I used to go around to local thrift stores and get all kinds of neat patterned tableclothes for $1 here and there. They'll usually get softer after a couple washes and then it's much more comfortable to use them for quilting. [yes]

So many great ideas! [heart] i'll have to stick around this thread...

now to figure out how to make a quilt.. lol.

llonka, Knerd linked to the easy tutorial that I found, on the front page. It's what I'm intending to try. I now have the intent of sorting through all my old clothes, I have the same issue as Belly, stuff that's too shabby to pass on, but has reuseable fabric. I already have most of the polished cotton type of things sorted out, I have knitwear and t-shirt/jersey stuff to do yet.

So I'll have 3 lots of things that can be chopped up and turned into cosy things like throws and cushions. With regard to knitwear...I could use the leftover bits to stuff a cushion, I'm sure :D

I've always really wanted to go to a thrift store, but never have. But going there for cloth and other materials sounds like a really good idea, I'll have to do it sometime!

sounds great jelly! i should go though the boys' stuff and see what i could use. *goes to look at the link*

YES!
This is exactly the kind of place my town needs!!

Sounds like the kind of place that every town needs [yes]

I had confirmation of something that I'd already realised; whilst sorting through clothes last night. Before I was forced through necessity to start buying clothes on Ebay, I was a complete coward about patterns. Consequently, the t-shirty stuff that I have is pretty damn boring! xD

Knerd's comment about tablecloths is interesting, I have a suitcase full of linen that I brought home from work, some of which has holes in it so can't be cleaned up and used on a table. Plus I'd be hesitant to try and clean the marks from a lot of it, as modern laundry products/machines might destroy it, no matter how well made it is. But this is all vintage linen of the white/ivory persuasion. A lot of it actually is linen too, or very thick damask material, and not really suitable to mix in with the other fabric that I have. Though I'm sure I certainly could sew some of the little doily pieces onto other pieces of plain fabric, what do you guys think?

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y17...dae/002-12.jpg

Those are very pretty jelly! I say go for it!

So here's a question; does anyone know how to take in shirts? I've been losing a lot of weight lately (on purpose) and some of the shirts my dad got me for Christmas are like tents already. I'd hate to give them away or leave them sitting in the closet. I'd like to wear them if I could, because they are nice shirts! Right now i kinda redneck fixed it; i stuck a safety pin in the side and already it looks better. haha.

Depends on where the seams are, how they are sown? Just taking the side seams in a bit might be all they need. When you say shirts, do you mean ones that button up the front? You could put princess seams in the front and back. I did that with a dress that was baggy around my midriff, just put a seam in on either side. About 4 inches long, positioned below the boobs and inline with my nipples, really, made a world of difference.

It like a Tee shirt. it does have seams in the sides... i should take a picture and show you. probably be more helpful!

I'm gonna have to take in some of my tops. Some things of mine could do with a bit of princess seaming action on the backs, because they fit fine at the front, but the back is all baggy >_>

Jelly - Have you ever considered dying some of that fabric? If it has age spots or stains, a light blue or yellow might make them disappear. It would be a bit of a shame to cover up goo linen like that, but it might be an alternative to getting rid of it. You could certainly use a lot of the pieces to make a table runner or pillow case, though! Save the embroidered pieces and edges for something really fancy.

llonka - You can't go wrong with just retracing the seams. Like Jelly said, just take them in a little at a time until you're comfortable with how it hangs. I wouldn't bother getting too fancy unless you're comfortable reshaping the tops. That's a skill that still escapes me, personally. [lol]

But at this point, I've taken in/let out 75% of my wardrobe. It's very easy once you get the hang of it. My only advice is not to cut the fabric off until you've tried on the final product and know it fits right - Just sew the seam and then turn it back right-side out and wear it once. Because as soon as you trim off that excess fabric, you're done for.

Ooooh ok! i'll have to try it on a shirt it's ok if it gets messed up... i have tons of cute shirts, but don't like to wear them because they are too big. That way i wouldn't have to buy new clothes!

I dug that dress of mine out of the recycling bag [ninja] so I can show you what I did with it.
This is a simple shift shape, some nasty slippery polyester fabric xD If the neckline confuses you, a metal torque bit threads through the bits at the top, and fastens round the neck. No idea why I still have this dress, as it's something I used to wear when I went out clubbing, years ago, and has just sat in the bottom of a box for years [lol] but at least now I can show how I altered it \o/

As this was baggy round the midriff, I decided to try sticking a couple of princess seams in that area to see what would happen.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y17...dae/001-30.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y17...dae/002-14.jpg
Being me, I didn't measure anything or tack it first, I just did it by eye. This was mainly because I just pinned it first, and once it was pinned to fit the narrowest part of me, I didn't fancy trying to get it off over the widest part of me...ouch! So the seams aren't exactly the same length, but they're pretty close. It worked better than I expected. The dress fitted nicely at the front, and I'd tapered the ends of the seams off gently enough for everything to lie flat and smooth, with no bumps or wrinkles where the seams ended.

I was very daunted at the prospect of doing this, but it was easy, and made a world of difference. Sewing is restful, too. I'll admit, I probably wouldn't have dared do that with a machine, as I am way too nervous of using one of those for that kind of alteration, but even with my slow sewing, it didn't take much more than 20 minutes to do those.

Oh wow that's really cute Jelly! You just hand sewed it? I don't know if that would work on my shirt or not. It's cotton material and has a small pocket on the left boob. lol. Oh the neck is like a V neck type thing I don't know if that matters or not. I'll just have to get a picture for you.

The bear is coming along! o____o I must finish it by this evening. O___o;;; Wish me luck? XD

Hello, there. It was recommended by Jelly that I stop by here, probably because I mentioned to her a future project I'd like to work on at some point. That project would be a monarch butterfly themed lolita coord, which would require me to do pretty much everything. I'd have to dye the fabric, hand-make the lace, sew a high-waisted bustle skirt, make the accessories, make a blouse.....

The biggest issue with this? I don't actually know anything about sewing, crocheting, tatting (or other lace-making forms), dying patterns into cloth, or anything else. I took a home ec. class five to seven years ago in high school--or was it middle school/junior high?--and I was told that I was pretty good at hand-sewing, but I've forgotten everything I learned!

I have no clue where to even start. I tried looking up some sites for sewing, but they're too broad and general for me to be able to focus on anything, and I have a difficult enough time sitting down for more than five minutes to teach myself something that I barely get.
So, if anyone can point me in a good direction for any form of craft work, I would be very happy. Any kind, really. I'd like to be able to make my own dresses, shoes, lace, pants, hats... Everything! (Sewing and what would be applicable to which shapes would probably be a good start, though.)

I should probably also mention that I don't like the idea of using a sewing machine. I barely managed anything in that home ec. class with the machine. :c It moved too quickly for me to keep up, and I like taking my time with everything.

Concerto: Have you thought about watching Youtube videos of anything you'd like to focus on? I'm in a similar boat in that I remember very little of my home ec classes and so getting started on what I'd like to make is intimidating because I feel like there's some sort of "missing step" that seems obvious to everyone else, but isn't to me.

So while I'm not studying sewing, crocheting/knitting, or tatting/lace making, I've been watching Youtube videos of things I'm more familiar with. (Lately, it's been painting and sculpting miniatures - which is new, but as an artist and someone who sometimes plays with sculpting, it's not entirely unfamiliar to me, so it's not as intimidating.) I know for a fact that there are sewing videos on Youtube, because I've added them to a sewing playlist. I'm betting if you do a good search, you can find something that helps you!

Did you make it in time?!?! Show us photos!


Concerto - Your best bet right now is to take things step by step. Don't get too overwhelmed, just tackle one small aspect of the project at a time. [yes]

Do you have any fabric for your outfit yet? Or do you know what kind of fabric you have to buy? There are some good shopping guides online, I'll try to dig some up for you. Different types of fabric are easier/harder to dye, hand sew, cut, etc. So depending on how much money you're planning on spending and how much wear-and-tear your clothes will go through, you might have a bunch of different options available.