Thrifty Art Thursday: Vintage Fabric

My favorite ways to find fabric at thrift shops:

Look through the linens section. Sheets and curtains can provide quality cotton prints for shirts, dresses, and aprons. Damask valances make neat vests, and the stiff fabric can make good under structure for fancier dresses.

Look for linen table runners and napkins with embroidery on them. They’re great for details and pockets, though I like to stabilize them with fusible interfacing, and sometimes you have to go in and mend a bit here or there. I think it’s totally worth it to save these beautiful pieces. Look for the hand done ones, you’ll see the knots where they tied off the floss, and there will be some unevenness on the back, unlike machine done embroidery.

Speaking of linen, it’s one of my favorite things to pick up from a thrift store. It is a fabric that wears well, so it’s often in really good shape still. My favorite thing is to head over to the plus size section of the dresses and snag some long linen summer dresses. You can get a couple of yards of fabric per dress. Easily enough for a girls outfit, or a shirt, plenty for bunch of pillows or a baby blanket.

Silk is another high cost fabric I keep an eye out for. If you find a men’s silk shirt in good condition that’s enough fabric to make a skirt or a short sleeve top for a women or a girl. Long hippy style silk skirts are a wonder to find, I always pick them up, though sometimes I have a hard time letting them get turned into anything else! Often silk items have a stain on them, otherwise the people wouldn’t have given them away. But that doesn’t really matter if you’re cutting it up anyway.

The last thing I keep my eye out for is white. Especially in linen or silk, because white is the perfect color to dye. It’s hard to find, but worth it when you can. Even white cotton can work, because it’s been washed so many times it’s actually easier to dye with natural dyes than new cotton.