Repurposing Men's Clothing

Good morning! I hope you had a fantastic weekend! Mine was quite busy, mostly centered around setting up my big boy's new bedroom. Out with the crib mattress that's been sitting on the floor, and in with a new "tall boy bed" as he calls it. Along with that change, came the putting together of new bookshelves and the moving around of all furniture and toys. Whew! We're done for now and it looks great -- until it's time to find room for little bro's crib in that space...



Amidst all this rearranging, I didn't have much time to craft. But, I did make some headway on a project that's been nagging at me for months: repurposing my husband's used clothing. You see, my hubby wears out his clothes like no one I've ever met. His scruffy beard rubs his shirt collars raw and his work "in the field" (when he has to visit construction sites and the like) puts some serious wear and tear on his work khakis. For the last year or so, I've been saving his no-longer-wearable button-downs and pants, determined to repurpose the large amount of fabric that is still in perfect shape into some other projects.



On the table: 8 button-downs and 2 pairs of khakis. I started with the shirts and first removed the buttons and button holes and the collars, then the sleeve cuffs. I cut the sleeves off and opened them. I cut the front panels off. And I removed the top portion of the back that has the labels.






I cut out any holes or stains that I noticed, and ended up with 5 pieces of flat fabric for each shirt (2 sleeves, 2 front panels, 1 back). For the pants, I removed the cuffs, the belt area, zippers and pockets, then cut along the seams to end up with 4 pieces of flat fabric.

Clearly, this is not rocket science! It turned out to be a slightly time-consuming project, though. I'm so glad I made the time to get through it. It may sound silly, but I feel relieved to now have "usable" material rather than a pile of old clothes to deal with.



So, what projects do I have in mind for these repurposed fabrics? I loved Betz White's idea for making boy's pajamas out of recycled men's shirts. Crazy Mom Quilts' "I love plaid! quilt" would be a pretty good use of such fabrics. Inchmark featured a few amazing quits made from men's shirts a while back. Browsing through Amanda Soule's Handmade Home, I'm thinking the laundry bag or the beach blanket would both be great projects for my shirt scraps.

Mostly, I'm just happy to have some extra fabric in the stash that is both free and boy/man-friendly. I'll keep you posted on what I come up with! What were you up to this weekend? Can't wait to read about your latest projects.

OK, it's official! We are reading each others' mind. I just did this exact same thing with all my felted sweaters! I am inspired to do this with my old clothes, but I have considered cutting those into strips and making a rag rug with them! In that case they'd need to be cut a different way. I can't wait to see what you come up with!