Gumbo Lily: Denim

Showing posts with label Denim. Show all posts

Saturday, August 27, 2016

Recycled denim skirt...

I made a skirt!

I snatched a pair of Bee's jeans that had huge holes in the knees.

I chopped off the jeans just above the knees and

used the good part of the legs to made the insert

in the back and front.

Here's a good tutorial how to do that.

I really liked the simple A-line skirt that she made in the tutorial,

but I knew Bee would like ruffles more.

I found some cute ruffle skirts here and here!

I ended up hemming this and putting two rows of ruffles

right over the top of it, overlapping one row over the other.

It worked like a dream.

I added a matching fabric belt.

This was so fun that I want to go on a holey jeans snatching mission!

I think all of my grandgirls would enjoy one!

Today I've been finishing up another project.

I'll show you soon!

Sunday, January 25, 2015

...to cut up blue jeans. My mother-in-law used to say she "turned jeans out to pasture" when they were worn out enough to start cutting them up. You cannot imagine how many, many pair of jeans I have stashed for use in mending and for jean quilts. I've made all of my kids blue jean quilts from our family castaways, and now I feel it's time to get cutting again and start making more quilts. My main goal is to get squares cut in various sizes. That task alone takes lots of time when you consider that you must take off all the seams and hems before you can even begin to measure and cut. I figure if that part is done, the sewing will come easy. So far I've cut 6" and 7" squares and 8x5" rectangles, all with hopes of sewing them together into quilts. While I've got the bug, I'm just doing it! I
think picnic sized quilts would be the best since denim quilts are SO heavy and hard to handle on a sewing machine when they get very big.

(I couldn't resist adding this label from the pocket of a pair of old Levis)

Do you remember the days of the Shrink-to-fit, button-fly, 501 Levis? I think they still make them, but those were the very best jeans back in the day. If you had a pair that made it to nearly faded-white, you really had something. Those jeans wore like iron. Nowadays we are lucky if we can get a pair of jeans to last 6 months with hard wear. And what's with the pockets in women's jeans? You can't even fit a tube of chapstick in them let alone a pocket knife! Now take a look at this Levis pocket label -- it's big enough to write a whole paragraph on it and add some swanky emblems and such. Those were some real pockets. And who doesn't love the Levis back pocket with the little red tab peeking out?

This past week I assembled a few of my squares into a small quilt -- baby sized. I've decided I'll leave it unfinished for now until I decide who to give it to. It might be for one of my grandkids, but it might be for someone else. I think it will be nice to have a few of these in my gift stash when a baby comes along or when someone needs a heavy lap quilt or picnic quilt, and then I can add the backing and the binding to match the person.

Here are three of the five jeans quilts I made years ago. Here and here and here. My kids love them!