A year or so ago Gavin and I decided we wanted to “drop a few pounds” — and we did. As the pounds dropped off, the inches came off as well, and soon we had a stack of blue jeans that no longer fit (as well as some maternity jeans with totally used-up elastic). I could’ve just donated a huge pile of blue jeans to the local Goodwill (aka they would’ve sat in a bag in the closet for months until I got around to hauling them off), but motivate us not to “grow back” into the sizes we’d just shrunk out of I decided to cut them up and make a quilt — once they were cut up there was no going back.
I assembled it in the kitchen as it has the largest open floor space to lay out pieces and I have some of my sewing stuff in the corner. The quilt was assembled as 9 blocks of 5×5 squares (which were approximately 5×5 inches square as well). It is approximately twin-sized — the organic cotton batting is twin-sized, the canvas was 9×12 feet so we used the extra to make edging.
The top of the quilt is denim from jeans and corduroy from maternity wear. The middle is organic cotton batting, and the back is a canvas drop cloth that has been washed. It is tied together with red and yellow embroidery floss. There are pockets, and a small matching pillow.
The quilt is now on Oliver’s bed, Patrick will get one soon (also twin-sized in anticipation of his one-day getting a twin-sized bed), but his will be stripes (I’m not cutting out all those squares again).
* This was done over the course of a year or so, in bits and pieces as time (and my temperamental sewing machine) allowed (it has since been replaced, which made this project go much more quickly), these are just photos of the finished project!
