The Spotlight – Secondhand Steals

By Janet Manning

Believe it or not, a thrift store is a great place to go fabric shopping. Just train your brain to stop looking for bolts of fabric and open your mind to all of the creative opportunities that surround you.

THRIFT STORES ARE LOADED WITH FABRIC; you just have to overlook the fact that most of the fabric is already made into garments. There’s something for your sewing projects in almost every department of the thrift store. From accessories to menswear, the treasure hunt is on. It’s possible to go to the thrift store with a specific creative goal in mind, but it often seems that if you know exactly what you’re looking for, you never find it. When you’re looking through the racks of clothes, concentrate on the fabric colors and patterns. Trust your instinct and go with whatever catches your eye. Let that be the inspiration for your next sewing project.

Scarves
One way to get started is to go straight to the accessory area and look for scarves. Using a scarf eliminates some of the complications of working within the confines of a ready-made garment. Decades of Style Pattern Company #3102 is great for incorporating a scarf as the yoke of the blouse.The pattern was designed with a contrasting yoke option so using a scarf is entirely appropriate. (See page 44 for a special offer on this pattern.) In addition, scarves are usually soft and have a nice drape so the fabric choice is perfect. Most large square scarves will accommodate the yoke piece.

Fold the scarf opposite corner to opposite corner to achieve a bias fold. Lay out the yoke pattern piece with the indicated side positioned on the bias fold (1).

Cut out the yoke pattern piece. If the scarf is soft and unstable, spray it with starch before cutting out the yoke to stabilize the fabric. Narrow hem the yoke straight edge.This edge is weighted and tucked into the depths of the cowl so when the blouse is complete, it’s invisible. Because the edge is on the bias, it’s unstable. Narrow hem the edge by hand even though it takes a few minutes longer.Stitching the edge on a sewing machine will stretch it out of shape. Attach the yoke to the blouse front with a lapped seam.Turn under the seam allowance on the yoke long curved edge. If the scarf fabric is difficult to manage, cut a 1”-wide strip of fusible tricot interfacing. Use the yoke pattern piece to cut the interfacing in the correct shape (2).

Place the pattern piece on the scarf fabric to position it into the correct shape (3).

Position the interfacing strip along the curved edge on the fabric right side; fuse (4).

This stabilizes the curved edge and makes it easier to turn under the seam allowance. With both pieces right side up, position the yoke on the blouse front, overlapping the edges K”. Hand baste the yoke to the blouse front. Edgestitch the yoke folded edge.

Full Garments
Another way to use thrift-store garments for sewing is to find a garment that has large enough areas to cut out pattern pieces from. Use an oversized shirt, coat, dress, nightgown or even a robe with simple style lines. Look for garments without darts or patch pockets as these are hard to work around and will leave marks if removed.

Before taking apart the garment, mark the fabric straight of grain. Unless the garment is cut on the bias, the straight of grain should be easy to locate at the center front and center back. Mark the straight of grain with a piece of basting tape.

Cut apart the garment along the seamlines. The basting tape should remain accessible after the garment is disassembled. Determine how much fabric is available. Lay out the pattern and see where you need to adjust the proportions or piece the fabric to get enough for the pattern.

If there’s enough fabric in the front and back garment pieces, lay out the pattern pieces and cut them out.This works best for a simple pattern or one where you can use other fabric for accent pieces. A short kimono-style jacket is a good example. It has fairly rectangular pattern pieces and you can adjust the proportions of the jacket to accommodate the fabric that’s available. Use fabric from your stash or scraps to create cuffs or neck bands.A blouse with short sleeves and princess seaming is a good style choice as the pattern pieces are smaller and easier to manipulate.

If the pattern pieces don’t entirely fit on the fabric, don’t panic. Remember, this is all about creative opportunities and design challenges. If you need to piece the fabric, have fun with it. Find scraps or fabric from your stash and see what looks best.
If you find wonderful fabric in a thriftstore garment that just won’t accommodate the pattern pieces of even the simplest garment, you still have options. Collars, cuffs, pockets and yoke pieces are all important elements that help meet design challenges. Use fabric from the thrift-store garment as an accent.

Mark the straight of grain on the thriftstore garment. Disassemble the garment and lay out the pattern pieces for the yoke, collar, cuff or pocket. Use these smaller pieces to incorporate the fabric you’ve found into the project.

If you don’t have enough fabric to cut out an entire collar or other small piece, cut bias strips from the fabric and make flat piping.This is a good way to use the fabric from the odd shapes you get when you cut apart a garment. If the seam allowance on your sewing project is L”, cut the strips 1¾” wide. Fold the strip in half lengthwise with wrong sides together; press. Sandwich the piping between two pieces in the seam, aligning the raw edges; stitch.The result is a ¼” flatpiping strip extending from the seam.

Use piping to emphasize design lines, such as princess seams. Or use it to trim the edges of collars, cuffs, yokes or pockets. Because the strips are cut on the bias, the piping easily follows the curves of a collar or a pocket.

Men’s Department
The men’s section of the thrift store is another place to look for fabric. Look for men’s dress shirts made of high thread count fabrics.These dress shirt fabrics transition nicely into children’s clothing.

Look at the suits as well. It can be hard to find high-quality wools in fabric stores, but thrift stores are full of them in the coat and suit department.The price for the gorgeous wools in thriftstore items is nowhere near what it would be off the bolt. Don’t be surprised if you find some nice cashmere to use. Coats are great to work with because they have more fabric.You have to be creative to use the wool from suits, but the results are worth it.

Use suiting fabric to make a skirt. Cut suit trousers into skinny gores to use in a skirt. Mix up the gores of the skirt by using fabric from several different suits. If the trousers are a really large size, you might be able to recut them using a pant pattern that fits you.You may be able to incorporate an existing welt pocket from the trouser back as the pocket for the trousers.

It’s All in the Details
This leads to another shortcut you can use—harvesting finished details from an existing garment. Patch pockets are the obvious starting point, but there are great design details everywhere you look: collars, cuffs, welt pockets, pocket flaps and even entire lapels can be transferred to another garment. If you find a vintage jacket with bound buttonholes on the front, cut a strip down the front that includes each buttonhole. Transfer this strip to your sewing project and use the bound buttonholes as the closures in your new garment. Don’t forget to harvest fabric-covered buttons and use them too.

Practice Makes Perfect
Don’t limit yourself to thinking you have to create a finished project. Using thrift-store clothes is an inexpensive way to practice sewing on different fabrics.

To add knits to your sewing repertoire, buy several different types of knit shirts and practice to your heart’s content. Cut out the sleeve and sew it back in again.Try the same with the collar, cuffs or ribbing. It’s a great way to see how your sewing machine works with different knits. Investing in a few thrift store T-shirts could pay off in a perfect knit project on your very first try.

To improve your ability to sew sweater knits before cutting into expensive yardage, practice on thrift-store sweaters. Use a pullover or a cardigan (men’s sweaters generally have more fabric to work with) to make an envelope tote bag.

Cut a rectangle twice as long as it is wide, or cut two squares from the sweater. Right sides facing, fold the rectangle in half and stitch the side seams. Or stitch the two squares together along the side and lower edge. Practice on the sweater scraps to see if the knit ravels.To determine the best way to finish the edges, try different machine stitches or serge the raw edges. Or bind the raw edges with bias tape. Line the bag with a coordinating cotton print to keep it from stretching out of shape.Make a strap from cording or webbing.

Make accessories from argyle sweaters. Cut off the sleeves and sew the sleeve seam tighter to make wrist warmers. Check out kids’ sweaters too. Because they tend to be more colorful, kids’ sweaters are great for making little coin purses. Line the coin purse with woven cotton and use a snap for the closure. It’s easier to sew snaps on cotton than on sweater knit. Also, kids’ sweaters might have pompoms, tassels or other embellishments to harvest for decorating a coin purse or bag.This is a great way to use colors that you don’t normally wear.

Check out the linen section for more practice sewing.There you’ll find flat sheets that are much cheaper than muslin. Several garments can be made from one sheet so you’ll really get your money’s worth.
Use sheets to test-sew patterns. Address all the fitting issues on the test fabric before cutting into the fashion fabric. In the end, you’ll save time and money by sewing a test version first.There are some very pretty bed linens out there, and you may even end up liking your test garment enough to wear it. No one has to know it was made from a thrift-store sheet.

There are some areas of the thrift store that might not have anything to offer for sewing projects.You probably won’t find anything in the dish or pots and pans area, the shoe department or the furniture section. But with all the other potential projects from the clothing and linen departments, you’ll already be busy creating thrift-store masterpieces.

What To Check For In Tthrift-Store garments:
Holes—Hold up the garment to the light to look for holes in the fabric. Small holes might not be visible as you casually look at the garment. If you find holes, you might be able to use the undamaged fabric but it’s best to know about them before starting the project.

Rot—Grab the fabric securely in both hands and give it a strong tug, pulling your hands away from each other. If the fabric is weakened by rot, it will tear when you pull. Dealing with rotted fabric is a headache. Even if you love the fabric, all you’ll be able to do is look at it. This in itself might be useful—inspiration comes from unexpected places.

Stains—Many thrift-store items end up there because they’re stained. Look over the garment carefully to see if there are stains.You can probably work around the stains but you must be aware of them to do so. Try commercial stain removers on the garment but chances are, the stains are permanent.

Mildew—Definitely do a “sniff test.” If the garment has mildew, you might want to put it back on the rack. If you buy it, you do so at your own risk. Apply lemon juice on the mildew and leave it in the sun to try to get the mildew out. But lemon juice is acidic and might compromise the fibers in the process of killing the mildew. It’s probably best just to avoid mildewed fabric.