I've used old clothes. In fact I have a shirt that I am going to cut up now. You can go to the good will or anywhere and pick up clothes for quilts. Yard sales often have some cheap. I have also used old blankets for batting. They work well. You can pick them up cheap too. Necessity is the mother of invention. Get to cutting!

Thank you for all the wonderful ideas. I will know what to look for at the thrift stores and rummages now. I will keep an eye on the Walmart clearance fabric too. The puppy on the tumbler quilt is so cute!

Thank-you that is my granddog. Spoiled little doggy....

Although not a quilt, I've bought flannel shirts from thrift stores to make fabric-wrapped baskets. The soft, well-washed feel of them add to their appeal.

Tate

I had a hand died button down shirt I decided to cut up and use for quilting. By the time I cut off all the seams and edges, I had so little fabric left to work with. I wish I would have kept the shirt. It isn't enough to show up well in a quilt, even a baby quilt.

I'm also fussy about what brand of shirts I use. I like the Ralph Lauren.. and a couple of upscale brands.

We are incredibly lucky to have such a large selection of fabrics designed specifically for our hobby, but it was not always so. Quilting was born out of necessity, not luxury, and our grandmothers and great grandmothers "made do" with whatever they had easily to hand. I am very selective about purchasing new material and careful in choosing my fabric. I recover previously used material from clothing: any cotton fabric from shirts, dresses, etc. It is a bit time consuming, but in a funny kind of way, gives me a link with the past, when quilts were made using leftover fabric. Last Christmas, for example, I used recovered Jeans to make slipper boots for all the children and men in the family. I also used jeans fabric to make handbags for all the ladies.

My favourite quilt is one that I didn't make! It was made by my great grandmother, as a bedcover for my grandmother when she left home to get married. It used old dress fabrics and leftover pieces of material, because she didn't have the luxury of purchasing new fabric from her local quilting shop! All through my childhood I remember it being on my grandmothers bed. It is now on mine!

When quilting first started, fabric was very costly (for most women). So they would get a yardage for a new dress about once a year. They would cut up the old dress for husbands shirts, boys shirts and girls dresses. Then the old shirts (from the boys and the husband), and the old little girl dresses would get made into quilts, covers for chairs, covers for inside door ways (didn't always have doors due to no central heating). Things where made, remade and made into other things until stuff was thread bare and then it was used as cleaning rags or stuffing. So you do have a stash, it's just in a different closet. I always recycle my fabrics. So happy sewing.

As with most children, we had many clothes outrgown with small holes or a stain here and there. The clothes were too good to throw away, but not in good enough shape to pass onto someone else. I cut squares of white fabric, about 12" each, then let the kids each have a few blocks to design with their paints. I made a quilt for my aging mother, including hands dipped in material paint, and signed squares by each child. Once I put the quilt together, we wrapped it up for a Christmas gift for granny. She cried when she saw all of the squares, and knew they were from the kids clothing. Twenty-five years later, she still shows off this quilt to anyone visiting her. Sure can tell I was a newbie back then! But even with all of the mistakes and uneven areas, she's very proud of this!

I like to find men's shirts, not too worn. sometimes women's in the larger sizes, for color variety. Anything would be fine, just check the labels for 100% cotton and check for wear.