Friday Finds ~ From Jeans To Quilts

I’ve been saving my son’s outgrown jeans for a while and still don’t have quite enough to make a whole bed-sized quilt. Not that I’m willing him into a growth spurt or anything, but another pair and I think I’m there. When I first came up with the idea I was thinking of a rag quilt, until I saw this beauty at Magpie’s Laundry.

It’s a rail fence quilt and each block is made up of several strips. The strips can vary in width, as long as the finished blocks end up the same size. The blocks are then alternated, so that the strips sit at 90 degrees to each other, across each row of the quilt. I love the border detailing, quilted to match the design of the blocks. Perfect. The other bonus of this quilt design is, being made up of smaller strips/pieces means less pairs of jeans needed.

Rag quilts are usually constructed from 6” or 8” squares, which means quite a lot of denim is wasted. It does however have one advantage, the process of quilting each block as you go and then joining them all together at the end. A good way to go if, like me, you’re a bit scared of trying to get the pieced top under your machine for quilting once it’s all put together.

This jean quilt takes yet another approach. Here the legs have been torn up to the width of the narrowest point and then chopped into a variety of lengths. This would be very quick to piece and has the advantage of the seams being offset. When you join the rows you won’t be fighting to sew through so many layers of denim, for which your machine will be most grateful. You can find the finished article and a tutorial at Piece N Quilt.

Decisions, decisions! Ah well, I’ve got until my son grows again to make one.