Lady of the Lake Quilt Block Using Recycled Jeans

Earlier this year, a fellow maker, Nicole, gave me 3 gigantic garbage bags full of old jeans. She's into up-cycling old sweaters into new lovely garments. Her sewing room needed more space to store sweaters so... I got a load of jeans. You can find her work at the Sequim Farmers Market on Saturdays (Out On A Whim).

My sister and sister in-law have been making quilts from recycled denim for a long time and I always wanted to give it a try. First I washed all the jeans and then it took four afternoons to cut them apart. This is after I had given a bag to my sister. They are separated now into light, med, dark and gray/black colors. Hard to believe what I started with is going to fit in one large bin after cutting (separate box for pockets). Below is my first project attempt.

The Lady of the Lake block has been on my mind lately so I decided to try it out on a small runner. It's fun using different shades of denim. Batting is the thinnest available pellon fleece. Indigo batik was used for backing and binding. It was also interesting to try quilting this on the longarm. The seams are really bulky as you would expect, but it works. Intrigued enough now to try a small quilt using this block but I think I'll use a piece of flannel as batting or possibly just back it with flannel. Denim quilts can get pretty heavy.

Here are some of my sister's denim quilts. Really fun stuff. She quilts runners on her machine and ties most of the quilts.