We had a rag drawer. My friend's house had a zipper bag. If any of their clothes were going to be discarded the Mom always had us kids use stitch pickers and rip out the zipper and cut off the buttons. Then their Aunt would cover over every month with a huge bag filled with zippers that had been ripped out of all kinds of clothing and we had to detach them from the cloth that surrounded them. I think she paid us a penny a zipper. A quarter bought a lot of penny candy when we were kids. LOLOL I had forgotten all about ripping zippers out of the clothes until this post.

I don't know what she did with all those zippers. I wonder if she resold them somewhere?

Anne

I have a rag bag in the garage and yes, I snip the buttons off stuff and add to the button box. Never have saved zippers tho. Anything that is stained or worn out gets cut to size and tossed in there.
Kathy G in MI

I have a rag bag! If it's something big, I cut it up into rag size before it goes in the bag.

I have a draw full of rags - mostly old tee shirts or bath towels or bed linens, nothing with buttons or zippers.

These rags are used for similar situations as the OP. I also use them to dust furniture or clean floors. They are usually washed and returned to the drawer -- but if it is a really messy job (i.e. oil change, painting, cleaning the barbecue) then they are thrown out.

If the drawer gets too full then some get donated to a local vet or animal shelter.

I have purchased microfiber -- but I think you aren't supposed to dry them with dryer sheets, and inevitably, they are -- and they end up in the rag drawer too.

We had one too, but so many of the items that made good rags did so because they were 100% cotton. Not much of that around today as tshirts and undies seem to have lots of polyester. Lots of people are buying those microfiber cloths too.

I have a basket in my laudry room for rags.
The rag bag is not dead.

I still have one..it is hanging in my pantry.

patti

Every man in my family has wanted rags. My son has friends that are jealous because he has such "fine" wiping rags.

For some reason I feel compelled to cut out the seams and neatly cut them into squares, and fold them.

I have a drawer of rags. I asked my DD if she wanted some when she moved out in August... she didn't. I guess she is using paper towels instead?

I keep hubby, son and son-in-laws loaded up on rags all the time. Wouldn't know what to do without them. We very seldom use a paper towel around here. Dang things are expensive to use...

we have a rag bag.. I will cut off buttons, but no zippers. don't have many things with zippers anyway!

Rag bag is alive and well in our household. Guess this started back with grandmother, mother, and now our family. We keep old white cotton undershirts and undies in ours. This is all I use to dust furniture. Kept cloth diapers until they fell apart from use. , The last baby is 40 years old now. Keep our bags on a line in the basement, so whoever needs one knows exactly where to fine them.

I also have a rag shelf, and a rag drawer. Don't know, how I could live without them. :)

Moni

I keep some rags around. Put them in the garage where I use them most. However I'm getting more like OJ... Keep them in the closet and wear the rags until they fall off in threads! Then they're not good rags either. Or when they don't fit anymore which is far more common! However I'm not the black belt at rag preservation like old Joyful! And I don't need as many rags these days as I used to go through. I don't do major car repairs anymore.

I sometimes will use them if I have a real dirty or greasy project or painting/staining to do then toss them. Don't worry about wiping on me in that case. Ragged underwear often goes with me on a trip and gets tossed after a last use so I don't wash and try to get "one more use" out of them.

No, the rag bag isn't dead.

What about you, Jannie? You didn't say.

I have a ragbag. And I clip buttons and zippers to reuse on garments I make. I have more buttons and zippers (and rags!) than I can use in my lifetime, even though I sew a lot for myself, my dtrs and grandkids. Gotta have a ragbag!

We used to cut the buttons off old clothes too, and my mother would sew them onto clothes she made for us. I save what I can for rags, but I only do that with the 100% cotton items. I use what I can from these pieces for rags, and the pieces that aren't shaped right, or the parts with seams, get cut up and added to the compost. We never saved the zippers.

I have a sock bag as well as numerous ragbags. One of these days I am going to find the spare (???) time to do some furniture refinishing as I have a collection of eclectic old chairs in the basement that I have bought over the years. I just love old chairs. Many need seats and reglued too.

Sue

I have some rags, but find that a lot of clothes just aren't suitable for that . I do cut the buttons off and reuse them in craft projects for the kids. I've found my best rags are the old towels. They weren't holy, but they didn't look good in my bathrooms. I have a few I use for the cat and dog. Some I cut a bit bigger than wash clothes. They are a good size for cleaning up spills.

I wash and fold raggy towels and keep them on the bottom drawer of my bathroom closet. That's what I use as a "rag-bag." All-cotton undershirts make great dusters, so they go there too. I notice polyesters and blended fabrics don't work well, not absorbent, so those I donate to charity. Toss them in a clothing bin.

The rag bag is down in the cleaning closet.
We both prefer to wear natural fibers, so keepimg it filled i no problem.
We also have a "drop-cloth" bag...for worn sheets and tablecloths. They come in handy when painting or for covering furniture when wiping down walls, etc.

I have always had a rag bag in my home. Even as a young adult and on my own, way back in the 70s I had a rag bag. That same bag is still hanging in my house today, still full of rags. I have always kept it in the utility area of any house we have lived in but where we live now it hangs at the top of the basement stairs. Always handy and used often. My favorite rags happen to be old diapers and yes, I am that old...I used cloth diapers on my first child. Still use them for dusting.

sooey
who needs to dust...rats

Granny & all my aunts had rag bags, but I try to buy clothes that will work for office when new & garden when old & compost when old & holey.

The best way I've found to keep that poor useless polyester out of the landfill is to buy cotton or linen or ramie.

My rags are in the cabinet under the laundry room sink -- along with the old towels for drying the dog.

Who has a "never-to-be-seen-again" bag? (You may know it as 'the mending'. LOL) A close runner-up here is 'the ironing'.

Yep, have a rag bag here. I take a rag and tie it on the handle of the lawn mower to use when checking the oil. Don't have to go and find one, it's right there and handy.

Older colored t-shirts or cotton clothing I cut up in strips and using a big hook crochet rugs out of them.

We keep old dish towels and bath towels for rags. But clothing, if it has any life left at all, will get packed up and sent on to help the homeless.

Rag bag person as well.

Rag bag still going stong in my household. We use a huge box as well as the old diaper pail from baby (now 22)... I also will wash a load of rags for reuse. In this house we all know where to go for rags for whatever job is to be done. I also save the old buttons....and have saved zippers as well if it is a good long lasting type that I may use in something else - like a jacket zipper for example.

Everyone in my family has a rag bag...

I am surprised anyone would think they are not around any more!

I've always had a rag "bag" in this case a drawer. I cut down towels and dishtowels, etc so they fold uniformly. Cold season is coming on and some will be used as "snot rags", as grandma used to say.

When I was a little girl in Chicago the Rag Man used tp come down the alley (horse and wagon) and later truck, We'd hear "Rags A Lying!! Rags A Lying!!" and housewives used to sell their old rags to him. I think he must have been sying "Rags I'm Buying" but it sure sounded like the other to me!!

I am married to a car nut, that has been restoring old cars for 30 years. Now that he is retired, I have to hide some of the rags so I have my own stash!

wow, I'm amazed and impressed so many of us have one.
I'll bet anything, people I know, don't have one.

My grandma always kept her old clothes, and like others here, cut the buttons and zippers out.

I save tea towels, dishcloths and the odd t-shirts. I use them for dirty jobs, but I don't have that many jobs where I use them. DH uses them for polishing his drum cymbals. I like the micro-fiber cloths for dusting, but wouldn't think of throwing out an old tea towel.

I keep some under the kitchen sink, and have a little bag with them crammed in, in the front hall closet.

I do pass on t shirts that we don't wear anymore, I don't cut them up, just for the sake of cutting them up.

We have a rag box in the basement sitting on a metal storage shelf. We collect more rags than we use, but that good. My main use is in the garage for servicing our vehicles, oh and for polishing shoes.

The problem is that not all modern cast off frabrics make good rags. The cotton based ones are the best. 100% polyester and other plastics are not good except maybe for polishing. The plastic based rags are not absorbent.

A good rag is like a fine wine. It is apprecaited while it is being consumed, and then you have to go looking for another one.

Well, I don't have a rag "bag", but we have several rag divisions.

Good rags -100% cotton, not too raggy, are in the house and used for dusting and other cleaning. Always washed and re-used.

Badly stained former good rags are in a bottom drawer, and used for wiping off animal feet or the bottoms of shoes. Sometimes these are washed but if too dirty, just tossed.

Then there are the garage rags. These have gone through the two other iterations of "Useful", and now they are just used for dirty, grimy, oily jobs. They are used and then tossed.

So ragbag - no. Management of rags - yes.

We use them for drying our cars or any other dirty job that calls for a clean-up. l.marie

Do I hear that darned Cynic using my name in vain? Again?

Rag bag - yep. But - there ain't much in it.

I'm having trouble choosing some underwear briefs that are not holey and only minimally stained, but the zip in whose elastic has pretty well got up and went ... to trade to my son and his lady for new ones that they gifted me ...

... (last Christmas).

Old things make good dusters ... and are useful for cleaning up spills. Wrapping around the broom, held in place by elastic bands, even synthetic material does a good job of clearing cobwebs.

I find that the synthetic fibre things make reasonably good dishcloths, not being required to soak up a lot of water.

I have a set of old coveralls, with hole in one leg (patched), and hole in other lag having had the seam ripped, ready to patch, but not yet patched ... that has a zipper whose slider(s) run up and down nicely, but the two sides won't stay together - I need a couple of cloths tied together to tie around my middle to turn the wind a bit.

Have some holey socks that need mending ... but they aren't ready for the rag bag ... yet.

Have some cotton socks that I need to darn (or patch) as I wear them over the squeezy socks (about $60. for 2 pairs) to keep them from wearing out quickly. Someone says that the socks wear mostly on the skin side ... but I figure that most of the wear takes place on the shoe side.

Hope you're all having a great week ... my friend was entertaining on the weekend at the last fall fair of the season, so we're having Thanksgiving supper tonight.

ole joyful

I'm another who keeps a rag bag. Recall as a newlywed
the realization that everything was far too nice to use as a dust rag & had to ask my Mother for some.

Ever since I've added a few nicely square-up ones (wrapped separately)& taped to the top of regular shower/
wedding gifts. (At showers, it's amusing to watch expression on recipient's face when she opens it.)

Hi all. I don't get around here much, but I found this searching for something else, so wanted to throw my two cents worth in. My mom had a button jar, and we all used to save zippers. Old clothes, once buttons and zippers were removed, were given to my grandmother to use for quilting or cut down and remade into something for someone else. We all sewed growing up. I became expert at taking hand-me-downs and making them into something I wanted to wear.

I have a rag bag, but it doesn't get old clothes much anymore, because I usually give them away unless they are too worn out or stained. Mostly, it has old socks in it. I don't save buttons or zippers anymore, but my friend has a huge selection, all in those tiny zipper bags. No digging through hundreds of buttons to find a match! That was the most fun for me. We would dump the jar out on the bed, and search for just the right button to replace the one that fell off.

I wish I could start sewing again. I still have my old machine, but it hasn't been used in 20 years.