#7 Scrap Denim Quilt - 2021 Make Nine {Concerto Quilt}
Hello, hello friends! I am feeling really great(!) about having one of my Make Nine 2021 projects completed already! (See the whole list HERE!)
The Scrap Denim Quilt has been a pipe-dream sewing project for a long time. We've been keeping our worn out and ripped jeans in the fabric stash…and jeans take up space! Which was one of the reasons I added the quilt to my list and why TaMera encouraged me to start off the year with it. In all it has:
11 pairs of medium/stone wash jeans
5 light wash jeans
1 yard of dark denim fabric. — I did have 6 dark wash jeans that was going to go into the quilt. But 4 ended up being jeggings (discarded) and 2 were too small for the shape of the blocks (Back in the stash.)
The flat-felled seams worked as well as I could have imagined. Delighted that all the edges are enclosed and how durable the seams feel.
Some of the seam intersections were THICK (as expected) and I had to walk the needle through those…and I went through all my denim needles. Which is a misleading statement because I only had three. ;) For the pattern, I added 1/2” to the seam allowance to make up the room for the flat-felled seams. That made the seam allowance 3/4” and that was almost to much.
Some of the denim came from leg pieces from our Grandpa’s overalls.
Some of the denim was the leg piece from our Grandpa’s overalls and I considered not using this patched area from the leg of one of Grandpa's overall in the quilt.
The area is pretty thin and I want this quilt to last…but as I thought about it more my heart felt heavy as I envisioned Grandpa sitting in his rocking chair wearing these same overalls.
These legs are from the same pair that made the top of Caty's dress (far right) in the photo below. I made for dresses from overalls for us girls to wear to his funeral. This blanket definitely deserves this patched square and this way if someone asks I can explain why my new quilt is patched already. 💛
I wasn’t sure how to bind the edges and my friend Ashlee on Instagram mentioned about using grosgrain ribbon. Applying it to the edges like you would single-fold bias tape.
After looking for a bit, I found the Ribbon Factory in Titusville, Pennsylvania. All of their ribbon is made in house and they also offer twill tape. The shipping was fast and my order was delivered in a week. I used the Red/White/Royal Blue ribbon because it was the closest (they had in stock) to a tab from one of the jeans. (Shown left)
I had planned for a super fun picnic themed shoot but that was before I finished it in January. It was in the 20s (farenheit) when I took these photos and I was trying to get them taken before we received a record amount of snow! Don’t worry the themed shoot will come in Spring. (Probably some more angles and views of the quilt too!)
This blanket is Kitten Approved.
While working on the blocks my Dad told me his grandma (my great-grandma) had also made a denim jean quilt mad from old jeans and overalls to play outside with!
It seems there are a lot of pieces to this quilt that run in the family.
This is the third life for the pair of embroidered jeans! A friend gave them to us after she was done with them, TaMera wore them out…and now they are a great focus piece on the quilt.
One down…eight to go!
-’- Jewel
