And more Denim Quilts

Having large piles of blue jeans on hand for quilt making or other items means boxes and bins taking up space. Used clothing requires deconstruction and while I looked for faded denim jeans and waited for my customer to get back to me with an ok for her queen quilt, I started the task of cutting everything apart.

I cut the jean legs from the tops right at the crotch level, leaving the tops intact for making bags. I then cut the seams off and I have a few ideas for those pieces that will show up over the next year or so.

A lot of the darker jean legs were cut into squares and matched with some purple and green flannel fabrics that I already cut into squares for a rag quilt and layered them with a square of batting that was an inch smaller.

After laying them out to get a random placement of the flannel fabrics, it was time to sew it all together. I had enough squares for two lap size quilts - big enough to use on a twin bed as an extra blanket.

After sewing the squares together with the seam allowances showing on the front, it was time to clip the seams for a ragged edge. This took several evenings of clipping while watching television.

Final step is running it through the washing machine to fray the seam edges and get that ragged look. It was almost too much for my washing machine and the lint filters needed cleaning a few times through the process. 

But the rich denim colors are so great with the flannels and gives a much different look than the faded blues of the previous post.

--Ann

More Jean Circle Quilts

Denim - it goes with everything and although the quilts made from them are heavier than a normal quilt - they will wear forever!

This lap size quilt was made early in 2024 and the customer who bought it loved it. She then messaged me to ask if I could make another one, this time in a Queen size. 

So I tapped into my online friend network to find the denim I needed as that first quilt used up all the denim I had on had. I ended up with a pile of a variety of colors. My customer then requested that she would like the faded denim look from the first quilt - which I made solely from my husbands worn jeans that were all the same style and color. The denim I had collected was definitely more on the medium to dark blue and wouldn't work for her.

I had one more friend that had jeans for me and thankfully, most of her jeans were the well-faded variety! Not sure that I had enough for a queen quilt, I traced and cut out circles, figuring that if I didn't have enough, I would at least know what I did have.

Most modern quilt making techniques involve using a rotary cutter and a ruler - which is far easier than the hand cutting with scissors that was required for the circle cutting. And . . . I had enough!

I layered a cotton fabric square with a piece of batting on the denim circles and stitched an X on them before sewing together. 

Queen size was going to be a challenge to maneuver through my machine, so I finished the quilt in four pieces and joined them together at the very end, so I would only have minimal seams at the very end. 

There were a little more variety in the shades of the faded denim than the first quilt, but the well-worn faded look is so beautiful in this larger quilt!

When a quilt is a custom order like this one, I only have a day or two to take photos for my records and I just love this one taken in front of our barn. Love it!

--Ann

Jean Circle Quilt

This pattern is a fav of mine and as my pile of worn out jeans piled up, I put aside a layer cake bundle (10' squares from the same fabric line) to use as the centers. 

There's a bunch of tutorials and patterns online, but I used the pattern Forever in Blue Jeans by Fons and Porter available at Quilting  Daily. I often get asked about the dimensions for this quilt, but I encourage quilters to purchase the pattern from the designer. 

I decided to sew the cotton fabric, batting and jeans together with an X before sewing the jean circles together as I had some minor issues with the last quilt I made like this with fabrics and batting shifting. This really helped hold things together and made for a better quilt in the end.

This time, I sewed down the curved flaps as I went instead of waiting until the entire quilt was done. Jena quilts are quite bulky and hard to manage at the sewing machine, so this saved the really tough seams until the very end.

And ta-da! All finished! Because I used the same brand/style of jeans, this quilt has a much more uniform look than the previous jean quilts I've made. Here are the previous jean circle quilts I've made. 

This one with earthy toned homespuns.

And this one in bright colors! These are great quilts for in the car and to take along on picnics or camping. They are sturdy and durable and wash up well. The raw jean edges fray a little more with every wash, giving the quilt a warm comfortable look.

I'm already collecting jeans for the next one!

--Ann

Jean Quilt with Homespuns

I am a blue jean girl. My fav outfit is a comfortable T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. But eventually, those jeans wear out, but a lot of the fabric is still usable and durable. I've been saving ideas for things to make from them when I'm done wearing them on Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.com/annsymes/forever-in-blue-jeans/

Jean quilt

This quilt starts with circles of blue jean fabric (this quilt features all used jeans) and squares of fabric for the centers.

Jean Quilt

 There's also a square of batting, so this quilt has a bit of weight to it and warmth.

Jean Quilt

 This would make a great picnic blanket.

Jean Quilt on the Deck

 Or a blanket for the cabin or for on the deck on a cool Canadian evening.

Black and Blue Jeans

 Some of the blue jeans were black and the rest blue which gives a different look than if they were all one color.

Jean Quilt

In hindsight, I should have spaced the black pieces a little more randomly, but this quilt is a quilt as you go and I didn't give any thought to that when I started. By the time I did think about it, it was too late to go back and change things.

If you want to make your own, the pattern is from Fons & Porter here. Or if you don't want to wait until you have enough blue jeans, this one is available for purchase here!

Next time! :)

--Ann

Blue Jean Quilt

Pinterest is a great place for inspiration and I saw this quilt and quickly pinned it, knowing I would be back to make it. The pattern is found in Fons and Porter's Easy Quilts, Spring 2014 edition. Last week, I checked the magazines when I bought my groceries and bought the magazine. I think I could have figured it out on my own, but it's always nice to have a new magazine or two to browse through!

I traced the circle template onto some template plastic that I've had for a very long time and dug my stack of old jeans out of the back of the closet. I found a video to play in the background while I traced and cut and in a few hours, I had 168 circles cut from my stack of blue jeans. 

The thing that caught my eye about this particular jean quilt was the bright colored fabrics that were peeking out from between the blue jean circles. I have a lot of fat quarters and fabric scraps, but I also had 4 packs of charm squares from Moda's Basic Grey collections - two from "Kissing Booth" and two from "Hello Luscious". A great way to save time as cutting 168 squares takes a lot of time!

I did go into my batting scraps to finish prepping for this quilt. I save bits and pieces of batting as small as 3" and found enough batting to cut 168 squares, each 4.5". The pieces are not all the same, some are 100% cotton, some are cotton/poly blend, some are white, some are a natural color. Because of the way this quilt goes together, I don't think it will be noticeable in the final quilt.

So now that I have all the pieces prepped, it's just a matter of sewing it all together! Doesn't it look like a lot of fun?

--Ann

Edited to add photo of finished quilt