As much as I would have liked to just cut up the suits, shirts and ties, I knew that my finished product wouldn’t be square. Garment parts are a lot like cuts of meat [says, the vegetarian]. Each piece has a designated use.
Like this cow…
Every part of a garment has a grain line. If you are lucky, you are dealing with a woven print and you can start cutting things based on stripes. Most of the time you don’t have that luxury. If you’ve done a bit of garment construction, you know that pattern pieces have grain lines, and that most garments are constructed in the same manner industry-wide.
This is a pretty good guide for how to find the grain of garments you are reusing. Men’s clothes are pretty spot on with the grainlines provided. Women’s clothes are hit or miss. Skirts and shirts may be cut on the bias. Proceed with caution on these. Ties are bias cut. In order to use all of the tie fabric, I applied a fusible interfacing on the back to stabilize them.