Putting on Old Jeans for the Festival

My entry for this Bloggers' Quilt Festival is this quilt which regular visitors to my blog will have seen before.

Each block is 16" square and the whole is 258" around the perimeter, so I'm entering in the large quilt category.

This quilt has been in the queue for a number of years really as I've collected an ever bigger pile of the family's jeans. I guess most people have a kind of jeans hierarchy? One has a pair of newish smartish jeans and then a Saturday pair or two, often mended and comfortably dented and then a gardening/ walking the dog (who's good at retrieving a slobbery sandy ball) pair and then, if you're me, a painting or irredeemably dirty job pair, then I often cut them off for shorts for a season or two, then they can become a quilt. Sometimes this full cycle is interrupted in the case of kids who grow out of them before they're worn out and they wait to be passed on to another sibling or cousin. Sometimes by this time we've looked away and the next kid is suddenly too big, or the jeans are too straight, or too flared or just not the thing. Then- they can become a quilt; or even if the whole jeans are generally bitsy, some parts can be salvaged.

This block was inspired by the ceiling in our local concert hall

Gratuitous shot of our Lab/ GSP cross: Pepi

It was quick to piece and put together and I like the way you can see our history in them. These are all items we've worn, with the exception of the stripe, which is left over fabric from a shift dress I made our daughter when she was young and the lightest dusty blue which was another from my stash.
I deliberately left the unpicked seam lines showing and some bits with worn knees or even the odd stain.

This lovely heavy quilt was just going to be a family sofa quilt, but our son really liked it and his 21st quilt wasn't quite going according to plan, so I was happy to allow this one to fit the bill. It'll be lovely and warm for his student flat. I had planned to back it with a vintage floral brushed cotton gifted from my mum's stash, but Sam preferred this subtly textured gray, so I'll put the floral to use on another quilt in due course. I added a back pocket from an old favourite pair of my husband's and the label is tucked inside the pocket

I quilted in the ditch around each piece and with a double line around each block in jeans yellow to echo the binding, which is a Carolyn Friedlander Botanics print

Happy Festival viewing! I missed the last one, so am looking forward to viewing the entries this time.

Jeans Love

Once the cutting was done this top has come together quite quickly.

I love how the jeans seams show here and there and you can see the wear and tear where our knees have been

An earlier post about this can be found here.

Now I'm putting together the back and pondering how to quilt it. One idea is to use yellow jeans topstitching thread to highlight the darkest and lightest windmill shapes but maybe that will be too busy and distract from the simplicity which is the appeal of this. Feel free to offer an opinion (which may or may not be heeded)!

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced

Work in Progress

Have been slowly making blocks for my jeans quilt

It's fun to see the pattern emerging. Not sure how big it will be in the end? These are all old jeans we have loved, except the pale teal and striped denim. The teal is from yardage, but the stripes have  been used as a shift dress for my daughter years ago.

I spotted this block while staring at the ceiling in a local concert hall and drew it in my journal when I got home, thinking it might come in handy sometime. Does it have an official name does anyone know?

Found this image here

I made a silly mistake when working out and cutting the size of the pieces, forgetting that I'd need to adjust the length of the longer pieces because there's only one seam in one direction and four in the other, so on my first attempt I didn't end up with a square block. Duh! But was easily solved by taking apart the centre seam and cutting 1" off all four of the longer pieces. It took far longer than it should have for me to work out exactly how much I should cut off, but was quicker once I stopped saying to myself "come on you should be able to do this much more easily"!!

These are the two blocks I've done so far, all present and correct.

Might mean a bit of quilt wrangling but I'm already thinking of quilting this with yellow jeans topstitching thread to highlight the darkest and lightest four panel star/cross shapes.

Meanwhile no progress on quilting the shirt quilt. I have an extra machine now thanks to my mother in law so in theory I can line them up and have two different projects going at once-so to speak, might need to grow extra arms/brain.

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced

Works in Progress

Aiming for a bit of a quick progress report here:

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced

Put together a quilt back for the shirt quilt, really nice cozy flannels, the blue stripe is from some much loved old kids' pajamas.

Pepi is getting the idea that walking/lying on the quilt when I'm taking photos/basting is not always appreciated. What a good dog!

Hoping I won't regret cobbling together some batting. I had some big offcuts of batting left but not a single piece quite large enough for this fairly large quilt so I butted them together and zigzagged. It looks as good as new... Does anyone have any experience of joining batting? Please tell me... how is it holding up..?

Anyway I basted it using my favourite pin method.

My Oakshott order for a few more blues came incredibly quickly halfway round the world.

Yummy yummy!

So now adding to these and trying for some colour decisions.

At this stage the ones on the top are possibly not going to be included, although I'm dithering about that decision (no surprises there!)

(which reminds me have you seen this? Maybe a bit of background re the love hate Kiwi Aussie relationship is necessary?)

maybe some yellow and green would be good (nod to the dear friends across the Tasman), but I don't want it to be too rainbow...

or to cut up too many samples trying to work it out...? Give me your 2c worth.

don't like this yet

Finally I've started cutting up old jeans

beginning with the lighter colours

My problem here is I'm set on largish HSTs with some corner sections like this or this but the leg width of the jeans defines my squares as a bit smaller than I'd ideally like and I'm worried about too many thick and bias seams. I do have some denim yardage and old skirts I'm using to supplement, which could yield wider bits, so the narrower jeans could all become smaller corners, but I think that might get fiddly... I'd rather make HSTs by the two squares method. then improvise colour placement on the design wall. More dithering...Could be overthinking this...?


Celebrating ANZAC long weekend here (TransTasman mateship in the trenches in Gallipoli 100 years ago) there won't be any sewing progress as we're looking forward to having some friends visit, though this lot are fellow kiwis this time round.

What have you got planned?