Today I wanted to share a tip I discovered a little while back.
I have a hard time with clutter. It is my enemy. We don't get along. Because of this, my house is usually pretty clean. I wouldn't call myself a neat freak, but I have a hard time saying I got anything done if there isn't at least a room or two that is clean by the end of the day. Sometimes my bedroom is the only clean spot in the whole house, but thats only because my kids aren't allowed in there.
Usually, my fabric is pretty organized. I admit, I am not perfect. When I get into a sewing frenzy, everything is a mess.
Part of my fabric stash is a bunch of old jeans. I like to think of them as pre-used fabric. Old jeans are great for making denim picnic quilts, bags, and lots of other things. They are soft and already pre-washed! Well, my stash of jeans had grown to about 75 pairs. That is a lot of space. They had outgrown their designated box and was overflowing onto the floor. Well that had to be fixed.
I started cutting them down, being careful to save as much as I could. But that was too time consuming. I didn't have a specific project I was saving them for, so I didn't have size a specific size I needed them to be.
I started thinking about it. I would probably never use the pockets. They are fun and all, but they are too hard to plan around.
Girls jeans have a lot of curves in them. So the side seams will not lay down flat. So I can't use them with out having to do some extra work.
The best part of the jeans is the middle of the front panel and the back panel.
So what did I do? I broke out my ruler for my rotary cutter and used it as a template to make five inch wide strips of denim. I would lay the jeans out flat, and use my rotary cutter to cut the front and back layer at the same time. I would cut off the bottom cuff, avoid any holes in the knees, and try to steer clear of the pockets.
Then, I sewed all the strips together, and rolled it up. Now I have a giant denim jelly roll! It takes up so much less space, and when I am ready to make that denim quilt, the denim is all ready to go!
I love that I can store this on a shelf and it can look pretty sitting there, instead of looking like a giant pile of laundry.
I hope you found this tip helpful!
Have fun quilting!