Cheesecloth (Can you make clothes with it?)

As the name suggests, the cheesecloth is primarily used for making cheese but has other uses like that of a summer ready tunic dress. Yes, you can make clothes with cheesecloth, but it wouldnot look like clothes you make with any other fabric. It is a loosely woven gauzy transparent fabric with a unique texture – if you want to make rustic, bohemian or avant-garde clothing, you can definitley use it.

Cheesecloth is a thin, plain weave, low thread count, soft fabric made of 100% cotton fibers. It is used mainly in the kitchen to make, yes you guessed it right from the name of this fabric, cheese. This cream colored fabric with irregularities is available in a very loose weave to look almost like gauze or as an almost close (still somewhat open) weave fabric in a cream color.

Other uses are to strain anything in the kitchen including nut milk, stock, oil etc.

Problems in using Cheesecloth for clothes

Because of its loose weave, it is different – and it is thin, lightweight and frays a lot – everything that gives you specific uses for the fabric other than being great for filtering purposes.

When making cottage cheese, you have to filter out the whey while retaining the curdled solid materials, eventually forming cheese. It is not too loose that everything will fall out but not too thick that the thick whey water will not escape. It is the ideal cloth to make cheese because you can also shape it how you want and keep it until it is ready. 

You can also use it to drain liquid from food. It is a multipurpose fabric in a kitchen. There are other uses for the cheesecloth in the kitchen. You can make beautiful sprouts in wet cheese cloth – the perfect moist atmosphere to grow new sprouts.

My favorite use of cheese cloth is to make small drawstring bags to keep vegetables and fruits inside the fridge. It absorbs moisture like anything. Cheesecloth is also used as a cleaning cloth, because of  this and its lint-free nature.

Another use of the cheesecloth is as an inexpensive fabric with multiple uses in crafting and sewing. You can use it as underlining under most light-colored fabrics, for clothes or accessories; when you want a cheap fabric that can act as a foundation cheesecloth is available. You just have to decide on the tightness of the weave you want.

It can even be made into casual summer-ready loose tunics if you like this look. The only problem is that as a cotton fabric, it is prone to wrinkles. You have to iron it, and it will still look all wrinkly. And it will also be slightly see-through.  . 

When using the cheese cloth, you will have to ensure that you have finished the edges – you can simply turn under the edges and stitch in place. This is important because the fabric cut edges will fray a lot.

Maintaining the cheesecloth is a concern as the food particles should be fully removed from the cloth after use. You should use hot water or at least warm water to wash the residue from the cloth and then soak for some time in detergent. Rinse in flowing water.

You can also machine wash after washing away the food particles with running water.

Is Cheese cloth reusable?

It is available as a one-time-use cheesecloth as well as reusable cheesecloth. Reusable means you can wash and reuse the cloth multiple times. So long as you clean and keep it dry, free of mold, you can use it a lot.

Different grades of cheesecloth are available with different looseness in the weave. So you have to look at the thread count number as well as grade mentioned to buy the cheesecloth you want.

How do you make cottage cheese with cheesecloth?

This is what I do – boil milk with some lime juice for some time. This will separate curd and whey in the milk. Cheesecloth is used to filter the curd from the mixture. You can pour the mixture into the cloth and squeeze out the water.

You can use the cottage cheese in a loose form or form a solid shape and then cut it up.

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