I buy men’s cotton shirts at the thrift store for quilting fabric all the time. After Barbara Brackman’s excellent post on shirtings, I was hot to visit the GWill and score some shirts. Lucky for me, today was ten for ten dollar orange tag day. Normally shirts are about $4 which is still less than yardage, but not as thrilling as a buck each! I mentally called this the “light and Bright” shirtings collection, although i could have had as easily called it “Things my Husband Would Never Wear”
here they are in they’re larval stage- still looking like shirts while waiting for the wash, but showing the promise of the fabric :
Next we see the lovely pile of fat quarters- each shirt back is about 18 by 24 or larger, so I figure it to be a fat quarter. The pile on the left is ready to be cut into squares and strips.
Finally, this is the payout from one size large men’s shirt: 8 2.5 inch strips, about 18 inches long, 16 5 inch square charms, a “fat quarter” and a nice handful of odd strips for string piecing (not shown). Everyone makes different decisions, but i feel like it’s worth my time.
nurseknits 
“Larval stage”! mwahahaha.
I have cut up Hawaiian shirts for the fabric but never calculated what I got out of them, Now that you have done the math for us I will be on the lookout at the yard sales that will be starting up soon.
thanks for this post! great information
I was really surprised how much it was! Can’t wait for yard sale season myself.
I have found the cutest prints on scrub tops, like nurses wear, in thrift stores and cut them up for quilting fabric. My fave prints are from tops i have thrifted and cut up.
I love that shirts have something different than the quilt stores!