A jeans quilt was on my bucket list, and I recently finally started on one.
My biggest caution is that cutting jeans with a rotary cutter is very hard on the basal thumb joint. It caused the arthritis in the thumb joint of my dominant hand to flare, and I still haven't gotten it to entirely calm down. It would definitely be easier on the hands to use a die-cutter on jeans fabric.
I used an electric scissors to cut the jeans into useable pieces, and I would advise not starting a jeans quilt without this tool! I probably would have gotten an arthritis flare from cutting up just one pair of jeans. Even with the electric scissors, just cutting apart the jeans took quite a bit of time.
I too struggled with the issue of someone getting to wear the jeans. Plus, no one in my family really wants a jeans quilt. I'm pretty sure the jeans quilt I am making will get use over the years but, now that I have actually worked with jeans, I think it's the only one I'm going to make. It is much easier working with regular fabric than with denim, and I think my fabric quilts will get just as much use and appreciation as the jeans quilt.
For me, anyway, my advice is to donate the jeans and work on something else!