I recorded a video about ugly fabrics and decided to write an accompanying blog post. The question I posed was…Is There Really Such a Thing as Ugly Fabric? In the video I gave my opinion, showed a few examples and finished up with six things to do with ugly fabrics. Honestly, I don’t think there are fabrics that are downright ugly. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of fabrics that I do not care for, but sometimes ugly can be a strong word. Also, let’s face it, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Fabrics I may think are beautiful are ones that other people may cringe at and vice versa.

Take a look at your fabric stash and pull out your “ugly” fabrics and use them. Here are six things to do with them.

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Six Things To Do With Ugly Fabric

Make a Scrap Quilt

Hands down, the best thing to do with the unwanted fabrics is make a scrap quilt. The quilt pictured above was made up of fabrics from my scrap bins and many were fabrics I did not care for. I call this my ultimate scrapbuster quilt and I have a tutorial for this block. Find the tutorial here.

Practice a New Technique

I always like to teach myself new skills. Try practicing on those unwanted fabrics. The photo above was my attempt at putting in a pompom embellishment in a Halloween quilt.

Make Quilt Backs

Instead of buying a lot of yardage for your quilt backing, piece together those not-so-pretty fabrics you have on hand. It will save you money and you may end up liking those fabrics more than you thought you did.

Make a Utility Quilt

We rescued a deaf dog in December of 2025 and he immediately decided that he liked sitting on my quilts, wherever they were. Here he is resting on some of my quilt pattern sample quilts. While I am sure they were comfortable, I don’t want him to ruin them. So I have a utility quilt that he sits on instead. It can go in the car. We can take it on picnics or the beach. The best part it, I don’t worry to much about what happens to it.

Sell the Fabrics

As I mentioned earlier, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and there are people that may love that fabric you want to toss. There are online websites and other outlets that you can try.

Donate the Fabrics

There are many places that will gladly accept donated fabrics of almost any kind. Try a local church or quilt guild. They are often making charity quilts and can use any fabric they get.

What are you going to do with those “ugly” fabrics?

Happy Quilting! – Claudia