<johnny> Why, I could make a hat! </johnny>
You could contact your local senior citizen place and ask if anyone is quilting. Quilting.
As in hand making blankets with scraps of unused fabric. They might want the cloth.
When I was a child, I cut and tore worn out sheets into strips and braided the strips, and made various things out of the braids; the only one I remember now was a bridle with which I rode the neighbors’ horse. (I had permission to ride the horse, but they’d taken all of her tack.)
Even the fabric from a sheet so worn that it tears if you try to use it as a sheet will make surprisingly strong rope if you braid it.
(If you have neither a 1950’s child, nor a horse with no bridle, you may not find this information very useful. But I used to love making those braids, so thanks for reminding me of it.)
Animal shelters and vets.
They don’t even have to be in great condition.
When I was forced to move I wound up trading a pick-up truck of old linens and towels for emergency boarding for my three birds. It was worth it. And I felt good that they weren’t all going in the dumpster.
If Goodwill can’t sell bedsheets or other fabrics, they sell them off to a textile recycler. (At least, most do - I’m sure there are some regions that don’t.)
My wife cuts them to suitable sizes for her Swiffer mop thingee. Heck, she buys them for a dollar or two at Volunteers of America just to cut up. Way cheaper then the Swiffer refills.
My mother uses paper towels on the Swiffer mop head.
I made a rag rug with my torn ones.
Know anyone who does quilting, or clothing alterations? Lots of quilters use recycled bedsheets as backing, or even “stuffing” for a thin quilt, and the elastic may be useful for someone who does alterations or custom sewing.
Clothing that is too worn to wear or resell can also be used as stuffing by people who make stuffed animals, toys, and pillows, and this also guarantees that the item is fully machine-washable and dryable.
If the answer for you is none of the above, contact your animal shelter, like other people have said.
And then knit yourself a new set of sheets!
Try freecycle.com. I use it all the time!
I use old sheets for collecting swarms of bees. Flat sheets are better than fitted for that though.
Gotta be the first time that’s ever been written in a sentence! I have to admit I have absolutely no idea how that would work, and it conjures up an incredibly entertaining mental image. And also, why don’t fitted sheets work well?
donate them for resale. there might not be a lot of California King bed owners although you might be surprised. I know a lot of people who buy sheets to make a mock up of a sewing pattern for fitting purposes. Large pieces of cheap fabric have many uses.
Heh, it’s a thing, not just me.
Basically, if you’re trying to shake a swarm of bees off a tree or something into a box, it helps if you can put a sheet under so any stray bees are visible, not disappearing into the grass. This makes it easier for you to spot them and easier for them to find the main cluster in the box. Then once you’ve left the box long enough for the stragglers to find their way in- you normally leave it until evening so’s they’re not flying, because some do tend to buzz around and freak out a bit, you can wrap and tie the sheet round the box to make sure they stay in while you move it to where you want them.
If you’re all properly kitted out and have a proper travel box that closes you don’t need to mess about with the last part, though the sheet underneath can still be helpful, but swarms have a tendency to all show up around the same time, so if your proper kit is already full of bees, the good ol’ sheet and cardboard box standby works as a temporary fix. Fitted ones are harder to lay flat and harder to wrap 'n tie.
Yeah, I had never heard of that before, either. Turns out there are some videos of bed sheets being used in this manner to collect bees, such as this one. Very interesting!!
37 posts so far and nobody has suggested jumping off the roof of your house using a sheet as a parachute? I would have given a month’s allowance to have a spare sheet or two when I was 9 years old.
Well sure, if these were regular king bed size. But California king? That’s just crazy talk.
True. What was I thinking?