I recently saw this super cool Jean quilt and thought that I really wanted to give it a go.
I don’t own may jeans that I wanted to cut up, so I did a shout out to all my friends and family. I was in luck as my sister donated a whole suitcase full of jeans for me cut up.
After deciding on a circle size I cut out all the denim. Using some flannel off cuts from the amazing Quirky Quilter . I started to sew the circles together. it has to be said denim is an absolute b***h to sew through several broken needles later I had a sort of quilt.
Unfortunately as my circles were all slightly different in size there were gaps between and it looked awful.
So I decided to cut scraps of denim to cover each corner of the square and hand stitched a pattern.
The end result was not bad. I gifted it to my sister by way of a thank you for letting me cut up her jeans.
The story does not end there.Oh no I still have a lot of denim of cuts and a burning desire to make a denim quilt fro me (but not the blasted circle one again!!!
I happened to be watching some Missouri Star Quilt Company videos one evening (as you do!) when I saw this really interesting tool that Jenny found while over in the UK for the festival of Quilts last year. You can see the video here. Well, I was hooked I could see the possibility immediately.
So I found a UK stockist (no import duties for me!) and ordered the template. Now, I ordered it the weekend before the blasted COVID-19 cases started to really start affecting the UK. The parcel arrived at my work on my normal working from home day. Unfortunately, it was on that day that my manager asked me to continue working from home till further notice. I was gutted I really really wanted my template. The following Monday evening i took the 3 hour round trip to work to collect the parcel. (Please note this was 2 weeks before Boris announced a full lock down). I know 3 hours, but it helped me clear my head as I was feeling like a caged tiger at home. Strangely now I have got into the swing of it I feel less anxy.
I had a few works in progress I wanted to d first, but finally last week I got the template out. It was well packaged to ensure it did not break in the post.
It cut out some denim centres (from the off cuts) and then using more flannel I cut the outsides. ( I LOVE the softness of flannel!!) I am now starting the mammoth process of sewing all the hexagons together separately before turning into a quilt. I cold have waited until it was done to show you, but frankly I am so excited I could not wait. I am hand sewing them together, so no broken needles (so far). Also as it is only one layer of denim the resulting sandwich is less bulky. Also hand sewing means I have a project to do while watching Netflix in the evenings, when I don’t want to be machine sewing.
What do you think. I am a long way off finishing, but I am so looking forward to seeing the results. I would highly recommend the template to anyone.
I will share the finished result when I finally get it made.
Until next time, Happy sewing, Love Dotty xx .
p.s. I am not going on any long drives now that the lock-down is in force. I promise I am being sensible and good (ish!) but I can assure you I am definitely not going outside when I have so many lovely sewing projects to do inside.
Hand sewing denim! That is a labour of love! This pattern was one of my early inspirations too, but I have not even started.
It was worth it for my sister 🙂