by Cathy Mcclellan

Created on: January 23, 2009

You spend way too much money on jeans to just throw them away after they are outgrown or stained or too old. Recycling jeans into other uses is a perfect economical way to add personal touches to your home or shop.

In pioneer days, frontier women recycled everything from clothes, burlap sacks that held flour and old rope. There wasn't much money to buy "store bought" things.

Even though we live in modern times, many of us can't buy "store bought" things either anymore!

Making things for your home is a wonderful hobby, past time and will save a lot of money.

I found a gold mine in a garage sale. There was a box full of various sizes of jeans that was free.

I took all these jeans home and washed them. (I'm funny that way). I decided to make a quilt!

JEAN QUILT

Cut the back pockets out with enough fabric surrounding them to make a 4x4 square. Continue making 4x4 squares until you can't make any more due to the seams and such.

Lay them all out on your bed to see how many you will need to make a quilt. I do not have an exact number of squares for my pattern as I usually customize the size I need, so my projects are on an individual basis.

Also take the pockets you cut out and place them in desired spots within the other squares. Since you will be using multiple pairs of jeans, you will also have quite a few pockets to use.

Once you have the quilt squares laid out to your desired length pin them together to form strips.

Sew the strips together.

This is the top.

Once you have the measurement of your top quilt, find the correct size of a corresponding material of your choice for the back. With front facing each other, sew around three edges. Return to right side out, fill with batting.

Use as much batting as you can, to make a thick, pretty quilt puff for the top.

Turn the last edge in and make a sturdy blind stitch along the edge, sealing the quilt.

You can then take any color heavy quilting thread you like, and working on the top of the quilt, at each corner of each square, take your thread down and then back up next to the first insertion point in that corner. Leave enough thread long enough to cut from the needle and hand tie a knot.

You will then have a beautiful quilt to place on your bed and because of the batting and jean material, you will be nice and toasty on a cold winter night.

There are many uses for jeans.

PURSE

You can cut the legs out and sew the crotch together and make a purse using Velcro along the top for closure. Cut a desired length from the legs, hem and sew inside

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