Upcycled clothing quilt – Part 1

I’ve been ‘hoarding’ hubby’s discarded denim and shirts for a while now… okay, more like a couple of years.  I always thought that maybe someday I will make something from them and when son-in-law declared the day we die, he goes on vacation for a week as he doesn’t want to deal with all the stuff we have in the house, I took a serious look at the contents in some cupboards and yes, he is right, way too much stuff.

So I tackled the denim and cut circles using a salad dish as a marker.

I then marked a square inside the circles.  After taking this photo I saw my square was not all that perfect but what the heck I’ll fiddle with it until it looks good.

At this stage, I had no idea how many denims I’ve had hidden everywhere thus no idea how many circles I’d be able to cut or how big the quilt would be.  I started joining the circles on the marked lines as I didn’t want to end up with a bunch of denim circles in another cupboard.  I can always add more to the sides, top or bottom.

At the end of day 1, with a blister on my knuckle from cutting double layers of denim with my scissors, I had 12 circles across and 12 rows down.  I still have a few denims left, so I might just add another row.

Day 2 I decided to add one more circle to each row and then started joining rows.  In hindsight, one really does not have to mark the centre square after cutting the circles; these can be done equally successfully just before sewing 2 circles together.

The one warning all quilters, who made a quilt from denim, had is that these are extremely heavy and one should not make it too big.

At the end of Day 2, I had all my rows sewn together, my flaps aren’t all the same size but I think my circles weren’t all cut to perfection but so be it.  This quilt would most probably be used by the pool or on the grass and even this size, is already too heavy to put on top of a human on a bed.

Now to search for the shirts I’ve hidden over time and start cutting these up.