Athena-Direct

I have found four very inexpensive sources of denim/fabric and am willing to share my knowledge. Upcycling existing clothing can make projects a little more challenging, but definitely rewarding.

Before buying, make sure you know the average cost of the fabric by the yard and what sales are often available. No sense spending time and money to pursue cloth if it’s going to cost you more than it would to buy it by the yard.

Your own clothes

A bit obvious, I know. Dig through your own clothes that your family our you have outgrown, no longer like, or just won’t wear any longer. Talk to your family, they may even be willing to go through their closets for you.

Benefits:

• Free, can’t beat that.
• No travel needed

Risks:

• Make sure the good clothes don’t get mixed in with the rest. I’m still unsure if the jacket I cut up was the one my husband can’t find any more… yikes.
  

Thrift stores, Charity Shops, or Consignment stores

Benefits:

• Seek out the clearance racks or find the discounted days/items. Often you can find things for 20% to 50% of the resale cost. Pay attention to the tags, because 50% of $30 for a pair of jeans you plan to cut up is a lot more than 50% of $8.
• It doesn’t hurt to ask: Ask a manager what they do with their fabrics/jeans they don’t sell. Often they will have a company or rags supplies already contracted out. But if they don’t, it costs them to dispose of them. See if they’d be willing to set aside the types of denim/fabric that you are looking for. They will often do this for a deep discount. And it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Risks:

• Travel costs where you can hit five stores and find one pair of jeans in your price range.
• If you aren’t finding what you are looking for it’s easy for you to start finding other things to buy that are at a higher target price, or completely unnecessary.

Yard Sales/Garage Sales

Benefits:

• Very open to haggling. Always offer less. If they are asking for $2 per pair of jeans, ask if you can take all 12 pairs for $8. If it’s at the end of the day? Offer to take it off their hands for $5. Most sellers just want to keep it out of the house.

Disadvantages:

• Travel costs – unless you have an area sale… you may have to travel a bit between sales. And there’s no guarantee that you’ll find what you are looking for. If you are hunting for other things ANYWAY (say for selling on ebay)… it’s not so bad, otherwise this is the one that requires the most time and effort to find the items you want.
  

Estate Sales, Auctions

There are companies that are hired to clean out a house after the home owner moves into residential services or has passed away. They will often have sales to clear out the possessions that are left in the home.

You can reach out to real estate agents if you want to know what companies perform this service in your area.

Benefits:

• If you want to pick through the fabric and buy just what you want, you can often offer far less than thrift stores. They usually have already thrown out ruined garments, but will leave the closet door open for offers.
• It doesn’t hurt to ask. I’ve managed to swing an agreement, that if I wait until the end of the sale, I can take all the remaining fabric items – for free. It saves the company from having to pack it up just to take it to the landfill. Ask around, you never know what else they might be willing to let you take at the end of the sale.
• Sometimes the items found are of high value. I’ve sold multiple bedding sets, men’s slacks, women’s dresses, etc through consignment. More than covering the cost of gas to get to the sale.
  

Risks:

• It can be feast or famine. I’ve been to multiple sales where I threw out as much as I kept, maybe a dozen items in total. Which was barely worth the drive.
• And there’s been times where I ran out of space in my SUV and it took two weeks to sort through everything. Getting ten totes of clothing to dig through can be a bit overwhelming.

Summary

There’s multiple ways people get rid of clothing they no longer want/need. If it’s a method to eliminate, there’s odds that you can intercept the trash can.