Frugal Moms

As I mentioned before, clothes don’t get the toss for stains in our house.  I won’t buy second hand clothes that are stained, but I won’t toss them either.  However, once a piece of clothing is hole filled, even is it’s just a little, in places that can’t easily be fixed (because it’s thread bare around the whole or it’s in the middle of a design) I usually cut it up and save the thickest, least stained pieces for remaking things.

A piece the size of a ten pack of postage stamps is worth saving in my book but, anything less isn’t.   I keep all ofthese scraps in a bag.  These scraps serve several purposes.  First, in their current form, I use the thickest, most liquid soaking up ones for rags. These are usually old cloth diapers, old wash rags, old bath towels, and the like.  Then for other rags I use them to make patch work items.

Usually people when people think of patchwork they think quilts.  Although these pieces can be used for quilts, they can also be used to make anything you might need in the patchwork style.  For example, my grandma had a pair of curtains for winter.  These were long thick patchwork curtains that were drawn tight to keep the cold Appalachian winters out.   She had lived through the energy crisis of the 70’s and the Great Depression.  She was a domestic frugal Goddess. She would probably blush and tell me to hush up for saying so.

The uses for patchwork style itmes are endless. When I was a kid in the eighties, some of my friends had patchwork winter coats.  Although my friends seemed embarrassed by their “homemade” coats, I thought they were awesome.  There have been books written by a great many famous people about patchwork coats and poverty in the Appalachian mountains.  However, patchwork has gotten a bad rap from these as a impoverished method.

Another potential patchwork item besides quilts are draft doggies.  Draft doggies are the little fabric tube filled with stuffing to keep house drafts from under the door at bay.  My grandmother had several of these.   They seem to have gone out of style in favor of new weather stripping, but in my hosue weather stripping always falls off before the end of winter, so it’s really wasted money.  I hate buying weather stripping every year to have it fail half way throiugh the season.  I’m going to make a patchwork drape forour door this year, I swear, with some draft doggies under neathe.  That way it’s a reusable form of keeping the heat in.

Other patchwork things you can make are pillows, pillow cases, toys, dolls, doll cothes, baby blankets, table clothes, napkins, chair cushions, dresses, etc…  I want o relay one thing, patchwork style anything is an art form.  To make something truly beautiful using only scraps is a gift.  In many cases, it should be viewed at in a manner of pride NOT shame as so many people in my life have done.  So the next time you think about throwing that hole filled garment away, check to see if it truly is thread bare all the way through and save the most salvagable pieces.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS