Brown/Black Denim and Flannel Rag Quilt

Rag quilts are pretty quick to do after you get all the squares cut. 

Denim is beasty to work with but if you have the right needle, thread, and tension settings, and go relatively slow, it isn't too bad. 

The black denim for this quilt is from repurposed jeans.  And I always have to say that I love repurposing things.  That is one of the reasons why I loved quilting from the get-go.  I started a couple years ago, making a rag quilt working with repurposed jeans, then moved on to making five memory quilts for nieces and nephews using my sister's clothing (their mother) after she died way too young. Like the ladies throughout our relatively modern history of man made fabric, I like the thriftiness that New Englanders get credit for, and the recycling that is smart for our planet, as well as how quilting is a functional art tradition that honors our foremothers. 

The other materials used in this quilt were bought new to use with the black jeans, adding contrast and softness.  The brown on the backing is flannel. This is a warm and heavy quilt but small enough that it handles well in the washer and dryer.  We washed and dried it a couple of times to clean it, of course, but the second time was specifically to encourage the raw clipped edges to unravel and to become bushy with texture.  It will continue to get bushier with each washing.

This quilt is for our son, daughter-in-law, and grandson.  My daughter-in-law loves texture.  And I was thinking it would be a good blanket that will take the wear and tear for their TV room, in a house with a growing boy and two large, playful dogs.  I envisioned it for movie snuggling in the winter, or for video games for our grandson, but of course, it is up to them what to do with it. 

Made with love.

Front

Back

Denim Rag Quilt

I made this denim rag quilt for my youngest grandson.  The denim is repurposed from old jeans and shirts and skirts.  The backing is fleece and the edging is cut from a cotton sheet set.

New Denim Rag Quilt and Preparations for Memory Quilts

Denim Rag Quilt for the RV. So here is my second try at a denim rag quilt. It is being modeled by a gorgeous day bed at my friend's house.

As I was on Pinterest yesterday, pulling ideas onto my board for future projects, I realized I've made a couple mistakes with my two denim rag quilts:  I didn't have a wide enough seam allowance between each patch, and I didn't clip into those seams allowances so that the frayed seams fray more or less evenly and create that nice ragged look between patches.

I didn't realize that until now because the first quilt I completed, I gave to my niece before I'd even had a chance to wash it and let it fray more. And of course, she would never say if it was less than perfect, being very polite.

So I did my second quilt pretty much like the first one. As I was washing it, I was looking at Pinterest and realized my mistake. And sure enough, after pulling it out of the dryer, it was pretty tangled with thread knots here and there; long threads and varied lengths rather than that nice even look.

I remember seeing how the rag quilts were done by studying how the rag quilt was made when my daughter-in-law had purchased one from Etsy.

But I'd forgotten a couple of details.

Oh well.

Unlike my first rag quilt for my niece, which was made with dove gray fleece (and thus very heavy and bulky), for this one I'd purchased a queen size sheet, cream colored with green leaves on it. I wanted it to be lighter weight and to blend with the colors in our RV, and easy to wash in laundromats.

Even though in the picture above, my quilt is shown on a daybed in a house (my friend's house where I am house sitting for two weeks), it was made for the top loft in our RV.

Memory Quilts Begin. Below are pieces I am cutting from my sister's clothes while house sitting at my friend's house in Maryland. I have put them in ziplock baggies of various sizes.  I did this to keep them in order and to keep them from becoming wrinkled or frayed.

I have about 18 bags of clothing, and five quilts to make from them. I live in an RV, so I need to figure out how to get this done while moving from place to place for various commitments. All the bags were stored in the loft bed area of the RV when we left Iowa after my sister died. They took up most of the loft space. I don't know what the total weight was, but those bags were heavy. So I wanted to reduce bulk first, knowing that I wouldn't be sitting in one place, with enough space to make all five quilts.  

Though this is a tough process, to be going through and cutting up my sister's clothes, I am glad to do it for my sister's children instead of asking their Mom's church ladies to do it. Even though those ladies knew my sister and surely would have said yes, when I mentioned this possibility to my nieces, they said they preferred I do it. It is my continued gift of time and love for my sister and now for her children. It is a way to fulfill a commitment to my sister to look out for her children. 

In the house where we are staying, taking care of our friends' cats, it is great having a huge, glass-covered dining room table to spread things out. The nine-fireplace, 1790's era manor house is quiet, and except for ghosts, I am alone with my thoughts and my sister's memory as I begin cutting squares from her clothes. I started with the bags of clothing that her youngest daughter had selected; a color scheme of pinks, browns, some blacks, a touch of aqua. There is a lot of elegance in the fabrics chosen for this quilt. I admire my sister's, and my niece's tastes. I love the feel of the fabrics. 

I don't know whether this will be done in a rag quilt fashion or if I'll save it for when I go to North Carolina where another friend, a master quilter, has offered to teach me to quilt in the traditional style and to help me. I am not sure how to begin but I've already made a denim rag quilt for my sister's oldest child - I did that one in January during the days after spending 12-15 hour night shifts with my sister in the hospice room in her final days. So because I made that quilt for her oldest daughter, I decided to this time to start with her youngest. Her oldest daughter will still get a memory quilt made from her mother's clothes, but I will do that one last.