I Found the Clearance Center

I’ve been jealous of the report of quilters scoring big on their thrift store shirts, but today, I have to say no more. Last fall I did OK over the span of two weekends and many miles on the car as I drove from one side of town to the other, but now I’ve found the Goodwill Clearance Center and it’s only 20 miles from me.

It doesn’t look like much since that pile on the left has some tiny shirts in it.  I had no expectations on what I would find or how the process would work.  So, I put my tie shoes one, removed my watch (the band is about to break) and rings and off I went.

This store has bins that are about 4 or 5  feet wide and maybe 8 or 10 feet long and a foot deep. On wheels they are about waist high.  They are set six bins in a section and I guess there were 14 sections, plus some around the perimeter of the room.  About every 30 minutes they swap 1/3 of the bins out and everyone descends on them looking for whatever it is they are looking for.

I focused on 100% cotton and big enough to get at least one block out of the shirt.  That top shirt on the left is only a 3 mo size, so that’s about all I’ll get.  Once I got an arm full of shirts and had made the rounds of the bins, I went and found a shopping cart.  I pushed the cart onto the scale, it was weighed and I ended up with 8 1/2 pounds of shirts for $6.71.  I’m guessing there’s at least 20 yards of usable fabric on my ironing board.

So, ‘de-boning’ these shirts, plus the ones in my overflowing shirt bucket is going to be my weekend project.  Once I make a few more quilts with shirts, I’ll venture back up north to replenish my stash.