Suz

I'm making a denim quilt for a GGS who will be going off to university this fall (hopefully). I had gathered denim from local thrift stores and really did not look forward to cutting through those hefty seams and keeping the block square. I decided to make three freezer paper templates. I just ironed them into place, side-by-side and cut away. ---- Maybe you all have learned this trick before, but I'm a slow learner and thought you might glean from my experience.

Also, when looking for thrift-store finds, go the the X-Large collections in both men and women clothing. You will find more for your buck. The first piece I cut on Sunday was a pair of large jeans which yielded twenty-two 8-1/4 blocks which included two rear pockets and crossed over the outside seams. Yes, they were quite large!

Iceblossom

Freezer paper is great stuff! Kudos to you for figuring out a solution.

So usually when I piece, I prefer a 10 needle. I'd be going up to a 12 working with older denim, and a 14 for stiffer stuff. That also means a bit of a wider stitch than I use, so you might want to stabilize the outer edges of rows and the border with an extra row of stay stitching within the seam line. That is, I'd probably go around each of the four sides of my blocks within the seam allowance if I had a lot of seams in the block, or when I put the blocks together I'd stay stitch the outer edge. Even if I was going to quilt it immediately, I'd be concerned about the stretch on those seams during the quilting process.

Now, I have made Thrift Store Shopping into its own art form. I sincerely believe that whatever you want, no matter how improbable, if you have a list and if you go looking, you will eventually find it! I get almost all of my fabric at thrift stores, yardage of Moda, Hoffman, still a lot of Concord/VIP out there -- you name it, I find it. Sure, I'm limited in the yardage to what is there. I can't necessarily go out and find the perfect blue print or whatever when I want it, so I have to buy it if it appeals to me when I see it and then put together collections back at home.

In my area, most of the stores follow some model of the Goodwill which is that they get so much stuff, no the stores can't hold it either. Things come in/go out in one month, and they are dated by "tag color". After three weeks in the shops, the tags go on discount and then get culled. So starting Thursday they go on a partial sale, 20-30% off. On the weekend, it is 50% off, and then on Mondays, it depends but usually everything on tag is $2.99 or less. And on Tuesday it gets packed up to go to the warehouse center for final processing. So, for example, I turned down a lovely vintage machine with great decals (wasn't a Singer, Free Westinghouse I think) in a cabinet with it's original accessories case and book for under $3.00. Sometimes it hurts me.

When I was collecting vintage fabrics, I had a round I followed Thursday morning, every week took me about 2-4 hours. Thursday was the start of the sale period, and I started at the Value Village near me, then the Salvation Army, then one of the two "farther" Goodwills, then back to my neighborhood and the St Vincent and Goodwill near me. I also looked at Vinyl records, and for my dishes. I got to know the other regulars on my schedule and route. So, there was the one kid I knew wanted 76s records and I'd clue him in that I had just seen some over there and had he been there yet?

I live in a relatively wealthy area of the country. It can be overwhelming sometimes to me the amount of value in the stuff around us and then how little it is valued. I've seen some people start in thrift store shopping and become hoarders. Some of us are really susceptible to bargains and you have to learn to just let some of them go for someone else.

In the last couple of years my hubby went Keto and has lost 200 pounds! He's gone through several sizes of thrift store wardrobes and now enjoys going on the hunt with me. He was shocked when sometimes you could find brand new things with store tags still on them and he started just buying those. Then he started getting in the tag day thing.

Before Covid struck, Sunday was our date day because it was the only day he was reliably off work. We'd go bowling and then 2-3 thrift stores on our way home. That's all been shut down for a few months with Covid but we are looking forward to doing it again.

Oh! One of the finds "on the list" the hubby was really geeked out about was a Microscope Kit that had a higher than usual magnification than kiddy sets. He's into mushrooms and wanted to look at spores. Anyway, came in a plastic kit with all it's slides and things, still had it's quite expensive store price tag on it (not sure... over $100) and we got it for $2.99 because no one bought it at $14.98.

Another "on the list improbable" thing I got a brand new in box record player that translates vinyl into digital, something I've wanted for a long time. They can be relatively inexpensive maybe $69-300. This one I got not on tag day but because it was a list item for $8.99! Very happy shopper.

Tartan

I hope you had spring scissors to helps as well. My thrift store.......sells stacks of already cut denim squares.

Jordan

I just finished 5 denim and flannel rag quilts. One for each of my grandchildren. My neighbor brought over to me a wheel barrow (yes-a whole wheel barrow) full of denim jeans that the thrift store she volunteers at was going to toss them and she knew I was a quilter. I invited my friend over one day and we just used rotary cutter, scissors, and plastic templates and cut all day. We got a lot of squares in many sizes. She took a lot home and I still had a lot of squares to use up. I sewed around all four sides and then sewed an "x" in the center of the square to make it more stable. Now comes the hard part of clipping. You are right "Suz" to get the extra large denim jeans as we could sure get a lot of squares out of the bigger jeans.

Jordan

I forgot to say that when I sewed the flannel and denim squares together I lengthened my stitch and I used a needle on my machine that is used for sewing leather and that worked out good.

toogie

I made this for my oldest grandson from some of his jeans and recycle thrift shop jeans. I used batting, but if I had to do over, I would omit the batting and just use the blue jeans and the top squares. It is queen size so it made it really heavy. I used a plastic lid from an ice cream bucket I cut into my circle. I used a butter lid I cut into a square for my templates. No special rulers to buy.
https://www.quiltingboard.com/member...07-609141.html
https://www.quiltingboard.com/member...07-607746.html .
https://www.quiltingboard.com/member...07-607745.html

QuiltBaer

Wow! Toogie, that jeans quilt is beautiful! Thanks for sharing.

bearisgray

I liked the idea of a binding for a denim rag quilt - but to also try to keep the frayed look -
this is what I came up with:

"Improved" finish for a rag quilt

toogie

QuiltBaer-Thanks-my grandson's now wife, was his girl friend when I gave it to him and they laughed that he actually wore jeans that lighter color. I like the different shades of jeans, that look like petals or leaves, on the red check side.

SuzzyQ

I'm cheating on the cutting. I've donated all the collected jeans to the local Thrift store. They cut denims into squares (whatever doesn't sell) and sell in packs. I'll buy the packs.