Saturday, July 17, 2010

Shirt fabric for quilts

In case any of you frugal quilters out there wondered how to get strips from men's shirts.  Here is how: remove the buttons (save for a future projects); cut off collar and cuffs; turn inside out and start cutting away all the seams.  Here is a picture of what you'll have - one large back piece, two sleeve pieces; two front side pieces, and two shoulder pieces.  Then cut into all the 2 and 1/2 inch strips you can get. There are lots of patterns for these strips. The one I plan to use needs only lengths of 4 1/2 inches.

It is time consuming but well worth it if you don't feel you can afford $8.99/yard for quilt shop fabric, OR you just want to make something special from your favorite man's shirts. I've got 13 shirts ready to make into strips.  It probably took about 10 minutes per shirt just to cut them up like above. You can get about 1-1 3/4 yard of useable fabric from each shirt.

A "green" idea.  Fill an old pillowcase with your fabric scraps.  When full, sew it up and use it for a pet bed.

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