Harvest fabric from old clothes for new projects - PEP BB textile.straw.fabric

To make the try-out complete I post here my effort to get that BB.


Pile of old clothes to recycle


One linen jacket taken apart


Collection of bags with my harvested fabrics. Bag of cotton, bag of linen, bag of woolen fabrics, etc.


Woolen sweaters (felted in the washing machine) taken apart


I don't use a seam ripper but this sharp little embroidery scissors. Here I am going to take the zipper of f


Some more old clothes. First I am going to take the buttons off. The button jar is another BB, so I won't show it here.

Thank you for making this, Inge! I'm going to ask Raven to weigh in on the requirements, because I'm not sure if we need before+after pictures of each clothing article.

I'm going to go fling some apple and pie your way for helping with this!

Thanks Inge, great job!!!  I made some tweaks to fit the standardish formatting for the other BBs.  I made it a wiki, added links in the first sentence, put the requirements at the end and used the boilerplate language for the requirements.  Oh, and I took out the requirement about 6 pieces of clothing.  If R or Nicole or Paul think that was a mistake, please slap my wrist and put it back in

If anyone wants to get in on making more BB threads (and getting apples chucked at them), feel free to enlist over in the PEPPERS in action thread!

And I just put something about 6 pieces of clothing back in since I see that's on the main Fabric badge page...

– show deconstruction of one piece of old clothing
- show scraps in your box/bag from at least 6 different pieces of clothing

So you show the work you did to take apart one piece of clothing
and then you show the pile of parts of six pieces of clothing (all taken apart)

So I think I'll have to add another photo, to show I really did take apart six pieces of clothing!

I think I count at least 7 colors/types of cloth in your pictures so I think you have demonstrated that you've done this 6 times.  

In a perfect world, I think you'd take one piece and do photos at a few stages during the deconstruction.  And I think your box may need a better view of its "clear label".

Mike Haasl wrote:I think I count at least 7 colors/types of cloth in your pictures so I think you have demonstrated that you've done this 6 times.  

In a perfect world, I think you'd take one piece and do photos at a few stages during the deconstruction.  And I think your box may need a better view of its "clear label".

I'll make some more photos soon.
But the 'labeling' is in Dutch, maybe it will remain 'not so clear' to you.

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:

Mike Haasl wrote:I think I count at least 7 colors/types of cloth in your pictures so I think you have demonstrated that you've done this 6 times.  

In a perfect world, I think you'd take one piece and do photos at a few stages during the deconstruction.  And I think your box may need a better view of its "clear label".

I'll make some more photos soon.
But the 'labeling' is in Dutch, maybe it will remain 'not so clear' to you.

I think if you just put a rough translation down below in the caption/description or something like that, that would work. I mean, if some staff member really didn't trust your translation, they could always look it up. But, I'm pretty sure none of us have time to do that. We'll just trust they aren't actually named something like "kindling," "apple slices," "there isn't actually cloth in here, hahaha!" and "Nicole is a silly moderator"

I could edit the other post, but I don't. Here are two more photos to make everything clearly visible.


Fabrics from old clothes, sorted in: cotton (KATOEN), linen (LINNEN), wool (WOL).


Packed in the bags in the drawer, which goes under the bed. I think the words on the bags must be clear now. There's one bag more here, it has leather, viscose and synthetics in it. And two things I still have to work on ...

BTW Nicole, you are a great moderator. :-D  
Permies has the best moderators!

Hello,

I'm working on this BB right now and I'm wondering about the six pieces of "clothing."

I think taking apart many different things is great practice and do not want to suggest a different number.  

So far, I've taken apart a dress shirt (saving buttons), a pair of jeans (Salvaging zipper), and a cotton sweater that I plan to use to knit a hot pad.

Another one of my things is an old love seat cover that I cut the seams out of and it is going into my scrap bag as four largish pieces of fabric, two small pieces, and eight ties.

Please let me know if this counts as one of my items of "clothing" or if I need to look for another holey shirt or skirt.

Hi Opalyn. Probably Nicole or R can give better answers ... As far as I understand it means you have to take things apart to reuse the fabric. Like you did with the love-seat-cover. Not only for using the buttons, the zipper or the yarn (as in unraveling). The love-seat-cover you took apart counts as one, I think. So five more things to take apart.

Here are my photos and a video for your review for the Textiles - Straw BB: Harvest fabric from old clothes for new projects

I got started on this a few days ago and today my sister decided to sort her closet and rearrange her bedroom.  In between helping her, I decided to use some of the old clothes to finish salvaging fabric.

Photos include:
– my clearly labeled cloth bag with fabric scraps
– saved fasteners like buttons (in the button jar and plastic butterfly storage container), zipper from jeans, and belt buckles
– show deconstruction of a knee-length bathrobe
– Laundry Bucket is now full of more old clothes to harvest and my clot h bag (of scraps) with my harvested fabrics and fasteners

Video shows articles of clothing before, sometimes during, and after the harvest.

I harvested fabric from a silk tie, a cotton dress shirt, a pair of jeans, a knitted (cotton) sweater, a satin robe, and a loveseat cover.
There are two pictures of the loveseat cover (before and after) earlier in this thread.

We updated the requirements for this BB.
Submissions above this post are grandfathered in to the old requirements.  

I've just got though "skinning the carcass" of two out of three leather sofas (abanondoned by a neighbour).
Would picture documenting the harvest of the last one count towards a straw badge bit in textile / fabric 'pep-it-ry'?

Since this BB is for deconstructing 6 articles of clothing, skinning a couch (or even 6 couches) doesn't sound like it meets the requirements.

I deconstructed an old silk scarf, 4 cotton tee-shirts and an old pair of [clean!] cotton boxer shorts.

I used a pair of scissors to cut along the seams, tearing where possible. Mostly I separated the tees into two sleeves and two panels. The scarf became long strips of silk (to be used in a future rag rug!) and the boxers became four small panels (plus two buttons and a strip of elastic).

I used an offcut with permanent pen to make a long-lasting lab.

Gosh, this took eight months to complete--I don't go through a huge number of garments as I'm quite keen on mending and sourcing high-quality items from the beginning, so it took some time to save up enough photos. Fortunately, my flatmate's partner gave me some worn out pants, and a friend gave me some linen shorts that were too small for them (but too big for me!). Might have taken me a year and a half otherwise!

Several items were carefully picked apart with a quick unpick for either patterning purposes, or so that the most fabric possible could be used for creating a new garment. I hope these count, as they are still being harvested for components in my mind!

Everything is stored in a cardboard box that used to have tinned lychee in it. I picked it up five or so years ago from a greengrocer I was living nearby to at the time, and it's survived five moves and quite a lot of use already and is still going strong.

Hi M Broussard. Are you aware that taking apart old clothes for rags is a different BB? This one here is for harvesting the fabric for reuse in new clothes (or other items). So you can have one more BB for the rags (or did you post it there already?).

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:Hi M Broussard. Are you aware that taking apart old clothes for rags is a different BB? This one here is for harvesting the fabric for reuse in new clothes (or other items). So you can have one more BB for the rags (or did you post it there already?).

Inge--do you mean this BB in Nest? None of the stuff above is for rags--all for patterning, remaking garments, or knee patches. There will be some shirts/singlets that get worn out in the upcoming months, so I'll keep that BB in mind when I deconstruct those! We do need some more rags for bicycle chain maintenance!

M Broussard wrote:

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:Hi M Broussard. Are you aware that taking apart old clothes for rags is a different BB? This one here is for harvesting the fabric for reuse in new clothes (or other items). So you can have one more BB for the rags (or did you post it there already?).

Inge--do you mean this BB in Nest? None of the stuff above is for rags--all for patterning, remaking garments, or knee patches. There will be some shirts/singlets that get worn out in the upcoming months, so I'll keep that BB in mind when I deconstruct those! We do need some more rags for bicycle chain maintenance!

O sorry, you're right, patches are not rags (in Dutch, my language, it's all the same: 'lapjes', meaning small pieces of fabric/cloth)

Here’s my scrap box. This was good motivation to finally organize and evaluate the scraps I’ve been chaotically collecting.
I hope this qualifies for the badge but, but if I accidentally missed anything, please let me know so I can correct that.

This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this. It took three and half hours, but I did get much quicker.

I made the mistake of starting with a much loved rugby shirt which has seen at least 6 years of hard use by both my boys and was built to be indestructable in the first place. Alas it has lost it’s shape, has a stain on the front and no one to hand it down to. The jersey cotton is lovely and I’m sure I will find a use for it.

I used my picker to remove the badge. All other seems were at least triple machine stitched and imposible to pick apart, so I used scissors. On the plus side, the seems will make very useful ties so I started a box for them. I tried scissors, picker and razor blade to remove the buttons and found the razor blade to be the best.

Second and third items I had already removed the buttons for the button jar BB. Once again, I cursed myself for buying such indestructable clothing. I managed to unpick some seems, like around the pocket, but in the end had to add to my tie collection and use scissors.

Fourth item was a pair of shorts with lots of panels. I still managed to recover most of the cloth. The zip though was sewn in with so many rows of stitching, I couldn’t figure out how to remove it. I’m not sure if it’s even worth reovering. I added to the scrap pile anyway.

Fifth item was a cheap pair of hiking trousers. The material is 100% polyester. It is black though and I have a black pair of hiking trousers that need patching, so I kept it all anyway. I discovered early on that turning the whole item inside out made for quicker and more acurate work. The trousers were quite tricky - lots of pockets, zips, pleats and excessive stitching.

I wanted to swap out the last item as it was another rugby shirt, but decided it would be a good measure of how much i had learnt. It didn’t take long.

I raided my small useful cardboard box stash and found three boxes that would hold what I had harvested with some room for growth. I labeled with gaffer tape and permenent marker, so should last 5 years+. My son has left for college and his room has a small study alcove which I have now taken over as my craft and hobby room. I’ve started to clear out old text books and created space for my three boxes. I used the loops / ties to bundle like materials together.

Caught up on lots of podcasts.

Here’s a bunch of photos showing what I did.

EDIT: See second post

Part 2:

I realise that the polyester trousers would cause my BB to be rejected. I don’t know what i was thinking!

Here is a replacement item - an old pair of cotton shorts.

Been a busy couple of weeks here... So I did mine in batches.
Cotton shirts and a pair of jeans. Used a seam splitter and scissors (sparingly)

I have saved pants from all my family for a couple years. Rips too big to fix, or just ugly, old, stained pants. I harvest the scraps by cutting them off the "skeleton" of the seams, then cut those leg pieces into strips, as wide as I can make them. I then sew together all the same widths of strips, and save them, wadded up like this, for strip quilt projects. I also save pockets. It's easy to add already-sewn pockets to projects! This amount of strips took dozens of pants, filling two plastic totes!

I deconstructed 3 tshirts, a pair of pj bottoms, a pair of cargo shorts and a pair of jeans. I took the easy route and cut around the seams. I kept the patch pockets from the jeans and cargo shorts and also the waist band from the shorts. I put them in a box and made a label from a piece of the jeans fabric.

Chris Kay wrote:I've just got though "skinning the carcass" of two out of three leather sofas (abanondoned by a neighbour).
Would picture documenting the harvest of the last one count towards a straw badge bit in textile / fabric 'pep-it-ry'?

I have no idea what PEP BB  means, but I fully applaud your upcycling/re-using leather.  I buy all the old harness I can find that isn't dry-rotted to re-work.  
Kudos to you.  Maybe you could start a thread on re-using leather for projects. I would love to see what you do with it.

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:

Woolen sweaters (felted in the washing machine) taken apart

Inge,
Could you tell us how you felt the sweaters in the washing machine.  I once tried to wash a wool blanket in the washing machine and it felted but it came out very lumpy.  I only realized later that it was not a woven blanket.

Thanks

My Mom when through her closet and I saw some good material in there. I cut the fabric in to my two favorite quilt sizes 3 and 6", pockets, hem-yarn and two grades of scrap (stuffing and peices). I haven't cut up the entire bag, but this is 4 pants, one shorts and one dress/shirt(whatever you call that weird length).

To show you've completed this Badge Bit, provide proof of the following as pics or video (less than two minutes):
– show before and after of the deconstruction of 6 items of clothing
– show the deconstruction process of one piece of old clothing (this could be one photo)
– show scraps in a clearly labelled box/bag with a label that will last at least five years

I decontructed 2 faded black t-shirts, 2 worn and torn work t-shirts and 2 worn and torn work jeans...all 100% cotton.

Most of my pics are of deconstructing one of my old work t-shirts.  I cut off all the seams and neck parts to save for a future project.
I cut up the larger part of the t-shirt material to use as backing for a jean quilt I'm saving jeans for.

I deconstructed the remaining 3 t-shirts the same way.

The jeans I am saving the top pants part to make grocery bags.  I cut off all the seams and will wrap them in jean fabric to use
as the strap for the jean bags.  The legs I left as long pieces so I could use as the straps for the jean bags.  I deconstructed
both pairs of jeans the same way.

I harvested scraps from 6 pieces of clothing that were 100% cotton: 5 shirts and 1 pair of pants

I used a seam ripper for the sides of the shirts and then scissors for the rest of the shirts. I started with seam rippers on the pants and then switched to scissors.

Going through my mend/scavenge basket.

My "box" is a drawer in my sewing cabinet.  The larger scraps will "graduate " to the "tiny scraps " jumble in the drawer above as they get used and cut up.

Full disclosure: the leggings are probably stretching the limit of "natural fiber" as I suspect they might contain some lycra. But their original label is long gone, and they pass the burn test. (But better reused than as microplastics in the landfill?) Let me know if that's acceptable.

Every item of clothing in that pile has been mended at least once (the red dress had 4 different repairs before a shoulder tore badly)