Upcycled Blue Jean Denim Rag Quilt in Progress

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to be making a rag quilt and incorporating some blue jean denim fabric into it.  I found a really cool long flowered denim skirt and a pair of plus sized jeans in good condition at the thrift store, and after washing, made quick work of cutting into squares to use in my rag quilt.

I forgot to take a photo of the skirt by itself, but here are the jeans after I cut off the elastic waistband.  Don't ask me why I took the photo of them inside out, because I have no idea.  They're a really nice denim color, not faded at all (you can see it peeking out at the top).

Plus sized jeans ready to be cut into squares

The rag quilt that I'm working on now is going to be made with 6.5" squares, which will turn out to be 5.5" squares after ragging.  I was able to get 38 nice 6.5" squares from this one pair of plus size 28 jeans. I thought that was a good amount for my investment of $2.50!  When shopping the thrift stores, I try to pick out only the items that are 50% off for that day, and the original price of this pair of jeans was $4.99,  and for that amount of usable denim fabric, that's a very good deal.

Ended up getting 38 6.5" squares from that one pair of jeans

My original plan was to have the rag quilt completely reversible, with each square having the same front and back, but I didn't have enough of the other cotton fabrics (also reclaimed) to work out that way, so I adjusted.  Since most of the other fabrics had flowers, I decided to use the flowered denim squares on the front also, and go with all denim for the back.  I ended up with enough to do blocks of 7x9, so I need  63 squares for both top and bottom (and the flannel filling also).  I'll still need one more pair of jeans to have enough squares for the back.  I have five squares of the flowered denim left so I think I might put one in each corner and the middle square of the back, just for a little visual contrast, and to tie it in with the quilt top. Will wait until I get the rest of the squares for the back before I made the final decision.

Here's the final layout of the front of the rag quilt.  I can't wait to get the other jeans and finish cutting the back squares to I can get to stitching!  

Layout for the top of my reclaimed denim rag quilt

The other flowered and burgundy fabrics are from scrub tops - another thrift store find!

Do you recycle clothing or other items to use in your craft projects?

~ Marie Anne