Greg's Jean Quilt
(Do you know how hard it is to take a picture of a quilt?)
Anyway, once a upon a time it was 17 pairs of jeans and jean shorts donated to us by friends and family members. For the record Greg's jeans and our friend Mr.A's jeans are awesome, lots of big open expanses of material. On the other hand Mrs.A's and my jeans, I didn't get very many squares out of them. hehe
So I took this nifty pile of squares, sewed 'em all together and then went to look for backing fabric. This was in March. When there's no red and black checked flannel to be found because that's a fall fabric. If Greg wanted pink and purple daisies, I would have been all set. But he didn't want that. No idea why not, it was quite lovely...
Anyway fast forward to July and JoAnn's now has fall fabrics in stock. In July. Flannel and fleece everywhere! In July. Okay, I don't know, maybe there's a mad rush for polar fleece in the middle of the hottest month ever but I was able to buy Greg's red and black checked flannel. And then the procrastination bug set in. As any quilter will tell you (ha, I've made 4 quilts my whole life, one you are currently looking at), the hardest part is the finishing. There are woeful tales of many a quilt top that never finds a soft piece of batting or a nice backing fabric to spend the rest of its life with...
Well anyway I stalled because I didn't know how exactly I wanted to quilt it. Machine quilt? Tied? Super glue? I tried machine quilting it first. And looking back that was very dumb because denim and flannel are two very different fabrics. Which means they handle completely different under the sewing machine needle. Long story short, it wasn't going to work. Well it might have, but I'm not a patient person when it comes to sewing. And checking both sides of the quilt every 4 stitches to make sure I was "in the ditch" on one side and not warping the lines of the flannel on the other side sounds worse than pulling my eyes out with a rusty pair of kitchen shears.
So back to the "Craft To Do" pile it went for a month and a half. And then Greg started mentioning the quilt. "Sure would be nice to have a quilt" he'd say as he looked at me snuggled under my Christmas tree quilt (one of the 4 I've made and yes, I know it's summer but I haven't made a summer quilt yet!). Or "It's almost fall, what a great time for a thick heavy jean camping quilt." And then "Um, are you going to finish my quilt any time soon?" Okay, okay I get the hint!
So I dug it out and started ripping the seams from the ill fated machine quilting attempt. And then bought some crochet thread, a needle and a can of basting spray. I now have a nice callus on my thumb from tying off the quilt. But the rest was all downhill from there, it was just a matter of sewing on the bias tape binding. And finally it's done!
He looks pretty cute don't you think? *smiles*
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