Friday, May 2, 2014

Thrift Store challenge quilts: part 2

Have you ever made a quilt from used clothing?  We love this thrifty idea.  Here is part two of the thrift store challenge quilts featured at the recent Arizona Quilters' Guild show, featuring quilts made from neckties, blouses, dresses and cotton scrubs. Do any of these inspire you to use thrift store materials in your own quilts?

Grandfather's Flower Garden, 42 x 42", by Margit Kagerer


We love this original and beautiful quilt made from silk neckties.  Winner of the third place award in the Theme category, Margit Kagerer says: “Grandfather went through his stash of neckties and revived them as flowers. He arranged the tips in hexagons like grandmother did for her garden.”

close up, Grandfather's Flower Garden by Margit Kagerer


Goodwill Hunting by Sandra Branjord


"Goodwill Hunting" won a blue ribbon for its creative use of thrift shop materials.  Sandra Branjord says: “My inspiration was the thrill of the hunt. This is a mixed media quilt using all materials from Goodwill. I cut apart and reused garments and recycled batting.”

close up, Goodwill Hunting by Sandra Branjord


Sandra used all animal-themed prints to make this artistic quilt.  In the close-up photo you can see pieces of some of the blouses, including the buttoned front and clothing label of a zebra-prnt blouse. The words "Goodwill Hunting" were spelled out with Scrabble tiles.

close up, Goodwill Hunting by Sandra Branjord


it was fun to see all the different materials and embellishments that covered this quilt.  Sandra incorporated buttons, beads and bottle caps, a wooden necklace with carved animals (in the upper right) and other metal pieces.  She must have had so much fun "hunting" for all of the different materials.

Delightful Thrift Store Challenge by CJ Fuhrman


CJ Fuhrmann made this very cheerful wall quilt with one yard of fabric and six different shirts/blouses from the thrift store, spending $25 or less.  She picked up the colors of the tie-dyed fabric in the various flowers, and added interest with squiggly quilting lines.  The block pattern was called "Fanciful Flowers" by Lori Hein.

Delightful Thrift Store Challenge by Gayle Reed


Delightful Thrift Store Challenge by Gayle Reed. “What to do with a dress, two mens shirts and a scrub top? Make appliques by fussy-cutting the stitched flowers from the dress and [adding] a braided border to tie it all together!”  We thought the braided border was the perfect finishing touch.

It's Not Easy Being Green by Judy Peters


Judy Peters says that her quilt was inspired by the 2013 Cool Globes exhibit in Boston, which focused on "hot ideas for a cooler planet".  The adorable Kermit-like frog is pointing at the earth, while wooden Scrabble tiles spell out the title: "It's not easy being green."

close up, It's Not Easy Being Green by Judy Peters


All of the materials were purchased at thrift stores.

Image credits:  Photos were taken by Quilt Inspiration.

7 comments:

  1. Just this morning my husband asked me if I had taken a section of his ties to use in a quilt. I had not. I was surprised, although not shocked, to get this question. Not shocked because when I was making my blue jean quilt a few years ago, I was thinking it needed some really dark in there to spice it up. He handed me his dockers,, frayed at the pocket, and asked if I could do something with them. I jumped at them, yes I certainly could.

    When I finished putting the darker blue in the quilt I spread it out on the floor and asked him what he thought. he liked it. then he asked if I had gotten to his dockers. I tah-dah-ed toward the quilt on the floor. His face was priceless when he realized what I had done with his pants.

    It was NOT what he had thought would happen. He actually wanted them FIXED!

    glen

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  2. WOW this is so great :-) Thanks for showing. Have a great week end

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  3. I cut up my own clothing to make clothes for my kids and still have scraps that are making it into quilts. I don't have to search out more.
    On the other hand, those are really great pieces of fabric art, so cleverly done.

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  4. I enjoyed part 1 of the thrift store challenge, but this one was even better. Thanks so much for sharing these. I can't get to all the quilt show, so your blog is great for getting my daily quilt eye candy.

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  5. What a fun idea. I really like Goodwill Hunting. Great quilt and great name.

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