2025 Waste Not, Want Not
What if you didn’t buy new fabric for every quilt? What if you could find “fabric” around the house? Waste Not, Want Not features quilts made from re-purposed and non-traditional materials.
Quilts are made from a wide variety of a wide variety of materials including cookie wrappers, gift bags, clothing, patio umbrellas, and blue jeans.
Seismic Shift, Cynthia Yin
Materials: Napkin, men’s shirts, bed linens and a J. Crew wool blazer
In Memory of All of Them, Donna Munic
Materials: The top is made from pieces of upcycled denim clothing in 5 different values of blue. The bottom is made from an upcycled blue sheet.
Description:
My dad loves golden retrievers and has had many during the course of his 88 years. This quilt is in memory of all of them.
I’ve Got You Covered, Lisa Bourgeault
Materials: Found materials, including leather, vinyl, plastic wrap, synthetic-blend fabric, cotton sheet.
Description: This quilt started when a Kindle with a black leather cover died. I couldn’t let that leather go to waste. Then I started thinking about all the other covers in our world that just get thrown away. The background is mostly made of a cover from a long-gone patio umbrella. Once I decided that I wanted each point of the star to have a different color, I was on the lookout for things like a red vinyl cover from a bridge tournament scorecard, silver covers from Covid test components, a yellow sticker on the plastic wrap from cheese, and a white and silver wrapper from a hotdog. Many of those things came home with me from trips. The back of the quilt is an old sheet that was too frayed to use.
Love Flows, Maya Madhavan
Materials: Clothing from my dad, my husband, and my son. The background, backing, and hanging sleeve are made of two layers of thin muslin fabric that was my husband’s old dhoti. The gray fabric in the top and binding is from my dad’s pants and the denim is from my son’s pants. The batting was created from remnants from other projects.
Description: The quilt depicts a flow, and it is fitting that it is made from clothing from my dad, my husband, and my son. The serged edging from my dat’s pants was used as decoration in some of the ‘arrow’ blocks. The dhoti’s green border shows through in places. The piece is hand quilted in the ditch everywhere and Wonderfil Razzle Dazzle was used for the big stitch quilting on top.
Hope and Chaos, Mia Mora
Materials: Fabrics were obtained at a clothing swap and include children’s clothing, men’s shirts, scrubs, pillowcases, a crib sheet and a fleece blanket (used as batting). The yellow fabric was a hospital gown used by my mom, who passed away last year.
Description: I began these two quilts when the Environmental Protection Agency was being eviscerated and environmental laws were being reversed. It felt chaotic. Yet I tried to maintain hope that some programs could be retained and future progress possible., I chose colors and designs while feeling these emotions.
I hand blanket-stitched the edges of Hope to reveal the batting and used bits to spell out ‘Hope’. The fabric for the lettering ‘Chaos’ is from a child’s swimsuit. The fond I designed and the free-motion machine top-stitching are meant to further convey my emotions.
Lazy Days, Renee Silva
Materials: Denim jeans and a thrifted suede skirt
Description: This quilt was made using the pattern The Denim Duo, by Radha Weaver of Sewing Through Fog. Grateful acknowledgement to Radha for her inspiring work.
Bag it Up, Rhonda Rosales
Materials: Amazon gift bags, Reusable shopping bags
Description: This quilt is made entirely from Amazon gift bags and “reusable” shopping bags that I had saved, but found most of them not that reusable. Now they will have a life as a picnic blanket.
Annette, Rochelle Rosales
Materials: Old (and very used) terry cloth towels
Description: This quilts is made from old towels and is intended to be used as a mat at the beach.
Mel’s Aloha Kitties, Teresa Sakurada, 2025
Materials: Hawaiian shirts, recycled batting
Description: When my husband passed away from lung cancer in 2019, I saved his cotton Aloha shirts to make a quilt. After speaking with my daughter, I finally decided on the quilt design as her favorite animals are kittens. I had many trials and pivots trying to best combine the shirt fabrics. The batting of this quilt is a used baby panel quilt I made for my daughter. Everything in this quilt, except the threads are upcycled items. [pattern: “Cats in the Attic” by Pam Bono].
Triskell, Veronique Oudard, 2025
Materials: Gold: Gavottes cookie wrappers, Navy background: my grandfather’s clothes, Back of quilt: old tablecloth
Description: This quilt is an homage to my Breton roots. The triskell is a celtic symbol from Brittany, France. I used the golden foil wrappers of Gavottes crepes, a cookie from the same region, to make the shape. I then appliqued it onto a background made of navy clothes that belonged to my late grandfather, who was from Brittany, France.
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