married life and old clothes

**Siebrie** · 05-04-2009, 09:36 AM

I was single until I was 36 and have lived on my own since I was 20. Clotheswise, this meant that I had a few good clothes for work, a few nice clothes for meeting friends, church, going-out, and lots of old clothes for the time spent at home and on the allotment. I would wear these old clothes until they were past mending and could not care (very much) less that they were shapeless, faded, etc.

Now that I am married I want to look nice for my husband, so I do not wear these very old clothes at home. These clothes are too old to be given away, but not falling apart.

What do you do? What would you do?

**miss_thrifty** · 05-04-2009, 11:06 AM

I always say if as of giving away clothes-If u wouldnt buy thembeacuse theyre too old then chck out or make rage out of them.
If ur meaning beacuse of ur hubby u dont want to wear older clothes. Thats totally up to you. theres nothing wrong with wanting to look nice for ur man and also keeping up your appearnaces for yourself(first ). But ur hubby will accept u for who u are .Thats love. acceptance.

**hotprincesscm** · 05-04-2009, 11:41 AM

I would use them for rags or material for projects, such as quilting, making patches for holey clothing...you can make rag rugs out of old jeans.

**CrazyCat** · 05-04-2009, 11:43 AM

I agree. If they're in that bad of shape....tear them into dust rags. When I get rid of old clothes...as long as they're in good shape, I'll give them to goodwill. (do u know what that is?) Do u have something like that over in the Netherlands?

Save one or two things you'd wear if you were either gardening or painting...when you know you're really going to get dirty.~

I have a tendency to wear out the clothes that I really really like.

By the time I'm done with them...it's either dustrag time...or I send them out to the garage for my dh to use as rags.

**Thevail** · 05-04-2009, 12:00 PM

you could cut the clothing into long strips and braid a rug for the nursery!

**Michelle** · 05-04-2009, 12:14 PM

If they weren't too old to be given away, I'd donate them to charity. since that's not an option for you, I would make them into rags or look for other ways to repurpose them around the house (e.g. cloth napkins, placemats, coasters, etc).

I would keep some for yard work or jobs like painting where you wouldn't want to ruin your nice clothes though.

HTH

**Must-Stash** · 05-04-2009, 01:57 PM

If you garden, keep some for the scarecrow.
Some could be used for washing the car, bike, etc.
If you have a pet you could sew two properly sized pieces of fabric together, cut your clothes into strips and stuff the pet bed with them. Cut off all elastic, zippers, buttons and adornments that could be used as appliquets (sp?) on future sewing projects or repairs.

**Judi Dial** · 05-04-2009, 02:36 PM

Make rags or a patchwork quilt or yoyo quilt from them!

Judi

**Grainlady** · 05-04-2009, 03:00 PM

Goodwill, Salvation Army and DAV all take items of clothing that are not good enough for wearing and they divide the items into types (T-Shirts, Wool, Denim, Flannel Shirts, etc.), bundle them in HUGE bundles (aka rag bundles) and they sell the bundles to companies - it's one of the best kept business secrets - the global rag trade.

Where hubby works, they use TONS of these bundles of "rags" in the finish department (T-Shirts and Flannel Shirts). So don't think ANYTHING is unusable. It might surprise you to know that about 50% of donated items to the Salvation Army end up as rags.

**Siebrie** · 05-05-2009, 05:45 AM

It's just such a huge 'mental hurdle' for me to actually throw away or give away clothes that I have thought good enough to wear for years. So, to my mind, I have clothes in my wardrobe that are good enough to wear, just not in company.

Thanks for all your answers!