Thrifty Business

I hit the jackpot at my local thrift shop today -- many yards of unused cotton fabric from someone’s abandoned or unloved sewing stash.

There’s a fruit print that’s predominantly grapes and will make a great lining for my wine bottle gift bags or the back of a pillow made of fabric reproductions of old wine labels. The yards of solid dark green, navy and burgundy fabric are perfect for pillow backs. The kitschy 50s cabin/canoe/bear/moose and cowboy reproduction prints will come in handy. And the half-yard pieces of oddball novelty prints -- Ms. Pacman, tractors, lizards -- may find a use in some future project. OK, maybe not Ms. Pacman, but the tractors have potential.

The shop and a couple other thrift stores in the Denver area have my business card taped up near the cash register. They know to call anytime someone unloads grandma’s attic, mom’s no-longer-used sewing room or an out-of-business shop’s inventory.

I’ve come home with yards of top-of-the-line quilting fabric, bags of patchwork pieces and their templates cut from cereal boxes or magazine pages, boxes of batting, vintage quilt blocks, baskets of thread and jars of buttons, all of which were re-used and upcycled into pillows, quilts, totes, bags and collage artwork. Most of the finds average to about $1 or $2 per yard, far cheaper than the jaw-dropping prices now found at quilt shops and fabric stores.

Everything goes into the wash before I use it, even if the products had never been used. They often take on the musty smell of storage, had been used as a cat bed or have been picked over by one too many sticky fingers. Washing them well is not negotiable. Even buttons and sometimes spools of thread are tossed in a mesh lingerie bag and washed on a gentle cycle.

The best detergent product I’ve found is not the expensive quilting-only washes or gentle-cycle products, but a small blue plastic bottle of liquid called WIN. It’s not available in stores, only online (try Amazon).

WIN is designed to take the stink out of sweaty well-used synthetic sportswear. All those “wicking” fabrics designed to pull moisture away from hiking, biking, running, skiing, snowboarding or snowshoeing bodies also pull the stink right into the fibers where it stays. One wash with “super oxygenated” WIN takes out the odor without damaging the fabric, making it perfect for quilts and quilting supplies. Use the gentle cycle of your machine and warm or cold water.

After a quick press and nice fold, the new finds get added to my fabric stash piles, revealing none of their low-cost thrift shop origins.