nativetexan

I made a rag quilt long ago with denim squares. Now most of my jeans are skinny jeans with spandex. would I be able to use those for a rag quilt when they are no longer useful to me? i worry about the spandex not taking stitching well. anybody done a quilt with spandex denim?

nativetexan

online it says to back the denim with stabilizer. sounds like a good thing.

bearisgray

I had acquired a bunch of "stretchy" jeans - and decided to not use them in a rag quilt -

partly because I had enough "regular" denim to work with -

mostly because I was also wondering how well the spandex would work in a rag quilt construction.

Although if one thinks about the "stress" that I've seen some jeans adapt to - it would probably hold up well.

dunster

I don't think it will rag if you back it with stabilizer, unless you mean just the center. I'm not sure whether the denim with spandex will rag anyway, so I would test it before making the quilt with it.

mamagrande

I personally would not use denim with spandex, if you are in need of regular denim just ask a guild or friends that have children or are farmers and you would have a lot of denim and different hues of blue. Worked at a place where they would weave denim rugs, they never bought denim, people would bring in bags of old jeans.

nativetexan

Thanks. i thought the same on the 'ragging'. I only have the legs of two thick denim jeans to cut into squares for now. I will put them aside awhile. maybe my son will lose weight and give me his jeans!!

bj

If you decide to go for it, I wonder if you’d need to use a ball tipped needle like you use to sew knits. IDK. Seems like maybe you would.

Tothill

I made a series of denim rag quilts several years ago. I ask at the Thrift Shop for jeans they could not sell. Some had spandex, most were plain denim, I used all in the quilts. I did not use a middle layer, did not sew an X in the blocks. I did not treat the spandex denim any differently than the regular and the quilts looked great.

If you open up the seam that is not flatfelled, you can use the top stitched seam in the blocks for a decorative accent. Same goes for the patch pockets.

ruby2shoes

I did the same.....I used jeans from the local charity shop. I did use a thin batting in it and a flannel as the backing and I did stitch a cross on each of them. Crikey that quilt turned out super, super heavy but my grandson loves it..snuggles right into it at storytime or when watching the t.v. I wouldn't use stretch denim only because I doubt it would rag as well as pure denim.