Ena Bradley and Jeanette Daley, owner of Ragbags, will go to any lengths to source their fabulous fabrics.

THIS is a rags to riches story. Well, maybe not quite riches just yet, but a thriving small business that makes recycling beautiful. Ragbags is a wonderfully offbeat little company that makes your fingers itch for a needle.

For five years now, Ena Bradley and Jeanette Daly have scoured charity shops and jumble sales for unwanted clothes made of interesting natural materials - cotton, silk, linen. These are washed, dried in the open air, ironed and then cut up and sold on as packs for patchworkers.

Delighted customers send Ena and Jeanette pictures of their finished work - exquisitely beautiful quilts, pictures, purses and wall hangings.

"We've always had a passion for fabrics and there are plenty of people who share it. We've got some lovely customers and we're always pleased to see what they've made," says Ena.

She's married to a dentist, Jeanette for years was a dental hygienist. But the pull of patchwork was too strong.

Ena, who lives in Ripon, went to a patchwork class all the way over in Penrith. Jeanette, who lives in Thirsk, did a City and Guilds course at Darlington College.

"We're fabricoholics. Old fabrics are so much more interesting than new. Many places sell packs of new fabrics, but that's not the point. The purpose of patchwork was to recycle, use material again, however small the scraps, which is why we love doing it," says Ena.

It also saves the environment - increasing tracts of rain forest are being turned over to cotton growing and cotton is also a heavy user of chemicals. "So it makes sense to re-use what's already there," says Ena.

They started off by attending patchwork fairs. "Our first one was in Perth, all the way up in Scotland, so if we fell on our faces, it was far from home," Ena recalls. They set off with their patchwork pieces stacked in nine apple boxes from Morrison's. "And we were overwhelmed. People loved what we had and it's all just grown from there."

They still do fairs, but they also have customers all over the country by mail order and via the Internet.

A friend gave them a cartoon of someone sneaking up and cutting a chunk off a dress that a woman was wearing. They're not quite that bad - but not far off.

"We do notice materials all the time," Ena admits. And if a husband or son has a shirt to be mended, he's likely to find it cannibalised into neat little squares.

"We insist on pure cotton, which isn't always easy to tell," says Ena.

Which is why Jeanette has been known to ask for a tiny sample in a charity shop - and then go outside and set fire to it. "That soon tells you if it's anything other than cotton," she says.

Their week has a rhythm. Monday is charity shop day, Tuesday washday - "Sometimes I feel like Mrs Tiggywinkle," says Jeanette - Wednesday they get together and work, plan and pack; Thursday is dyeing day - they space dye old sheets for a prettier version of the tie dye effect; Friday is their "fun day" - when they try to put their families first; Saturday is jumble sale day - "They might be dying out in the rest of the country but the Harrogate area is still brilliant for jumble sales," says Ena; and Sunday's a day of rest.

They devote one day a month to quilting and working on new ideas. They sell kits to make pillows and cushions, patchwork pigs and houses.

As well as the buying, sorting, washing, ironing and packing, Ena and Jeanette also make all the boxes and the labels. The materials are all sorted into packs with different themes - Classic Collection, Nostalgic, Natural and Seasonal - each with another half-a-dozen or so sub sections. There are also cherished packs of vintage cottons from the 1930s to 70s.

They also recycle old buttons. "Hand knitters like them," and even zips, which go to Cumbria to people who make great little patchwork purses in aid of cancer charities. And they now save all the labels from the clothes they cut up as there are customers who like to use the labels to add a novel touch to their creations.

"Patchwork is booming," says Ena. "Some people still like to do the traditional styles but there are many people who are finding new ways of using patchwork, often very sophisticated and dramatic. But we cater for everybody. You can do anything with recycled fabric."

* Normally, the small showroom in Ripon is open only by appointment, but from Monday, January 24-Monday, January 31, it will be open every day between 10am and 4pm.

* Ragbags, Coney Garth, 3 Kirkby Road, Ripon, HG4 2EY. Tel: (01765) 601334. Mail order brochure available. Also a very good website: www.ragbags.net.

* Prices for assorted vintage squares range from £4.50 to £9. Patchwork Pig kit is £8.50, Starcat pillow kit £12.50.