I'm on the Outreach Committee of our quilt guild and have been storing the donated fabric. After several months of stubbed toes and pushing around 6 giant bins, I asked my friend Sue to come over and help me sort it out. It took us over three hours to go through 3 bins and several bags. After she left, I went through 3 more bins of kid prints. I'd like to present to you the worst of the worst with some quotes from Sue followed by my tips for donating fabric.
"This one can stand on its own!" Yes, indeed, it can. Yikes!
"This might be the worst of the day." Sheer. Marbled. Plaid. Why?
Actually, I could picture my mother wearing this as a scarf in the 70's.
Please only donate 100% quilting cotton.
"We should wear these." There were two pieces of this textured silky bright. If they were a little bigger, we would have worn them as scarves at the meeting. Or not.
Then there were some oldies but goodies... I love this piece. It reminds me of my Grandmothers.
Please don't donate antique fabric or quilt blocks.
We kept several bins of good stuff and sold 2 bins full of "others." We bundled up the antique blocks and fabric groupings to sell. There were lots of novelties we couldn't use and stuff we just really didn't like. We earned $150 for the project! We'll be buying a full roll of batting, so all that donated fabric went to good use after all.
My Girl Scout troop will be having our last meeting today. Sniff. It's not time to say goodbye yet as we have several events coming up including a trip to Build-a-Bear. I pulled together some supplies to make these cool bracelets that I found on Pinterest. If they work fast, they can keep one and make one for mom.
What a job that must have been....sorting through the fabric! I'm glad you were able to make some money for the batting!
ReplyDeleteI totally understand your donations! Our quilt ministry gets a few bags now and then. After I go through them there is only 25% left that is 100% cotton!!!
ReplyDeleteI can't believe people (quilters!) have donated fabric like that...thank goodness you were able to sell it!! I love the bracelets - have fun!
ReplyDeleteMany quilters use other than 100% cotton for quilting - art quilters, crazy quilts, frugal quilters, vintage fabric quilters, primitive quilters, etc. Our forequilters used whatever they had, from wool to cotton to feedsacks to cornhusks for batting. Isn't it nice that we can all afford to be so choosy these days. If you only want 100% LQS cotton, you should specify that. People donated out of a sense of good will. VermontPines at aol dot com
ReplyDeleteA very interesting Post! My thoughts - if it isn't good enough for you, please don't pass it on. I have been in dathis predicament, waiting for the tip truck to come - run out, dump it in the bin and wave the truck goodbye,lol!
ReplyDeleteHugs Lurline.