Home washers and jeans quilts don"t mix!
Now, I did wash all of the jeans in the washer, HOT water, COLD rinse with NO fabric softer just to make sure that all of the shrinkage and nasties from the location I purchased from was either dead or gone.
The 1st one I made, I made in the style of a rag quilt, butted wrong sides together with the flannel backing and warm and natural batting (wrong move, tell you why in a moment) I cut all of the squares and then embroidered a simple quit pattern on the sandwich with my embroidery machine. Butted wrong sides together and then sewed together so the raw seams were on the top. So far, so good. Used strips of jeans for the binding, and then took it to the laundromat and used one of the large commercial washers and boy am I glad I did!
I started the machine and let it run. When I took the quilt out of the machine, it was one big ball of strings!! I remember someone telling me that I had destroyed my quilt.. LOL Little did they know. So I sat on the floor of the laundromat for almost 30 minutes pulling off strings. I had a huge ball when I was done and the looks on peoples faces was horror. I put it in the dryer and let it run for 4 cycles, took it out and it was still damp. I was a work, running back and forth from two doors down to check on the quilt every 20 minutes. I finally took it and laied it out in the back of my truck in the sun and let it bake.
This was only my second quilt, I knew nothing about quilting other than I liked to do it. The weight of the quilt when I took it out of the washer was tremendous and when my son used it when he went camping, it kept him nice and warm. I dreaded when it came time to wash it, 'cus off to the laundromat I went and every time I washed it, more string would come out. Did I tell you it was my second quilt? Did I tell you that I didn't reinforce the stitching by using a tipple stitch? No, well I didn't. After about 5 years of washing, it started to develop holes at some of the seams, no fault of my son, just the fact that denim ravels and unless you encase the seams, it will fall apart, but I didn't know this. The quilt hung in the sewing machine store that I worked at for about 6 months and I had several offers to purchase it, but it was for my son. I had to display it because I did a lot of the work at the store in-between customers and this was the agreement I made with the store owner, display for 6 months or not work on it.. I caved and displayed, but we sold a lot of the machine that it was made on
LOL
The 2nd one, the one in the picture above, has all the seams incased, NO batting and has held up very well with no strings. Now I stick to cotton, nice and thin, light weight and easy to handle.
Some of the downfalls for using jeans, my hands were blue, the bed of my machine was blue, my iron and ironing board was blue and if I was wearing light colors when I was working on it, you could see blue on my front, I had strings and blue lint everywhere! You will need help putting it together when it gets larger (as in someone to help hold it as you pass it through your machine)
Some of the benefits for using jeans, the quilt will outlast dirt! It is great for camping and you can treat it just as you would a pair of jeans. Extremely durable unless you make it with exposed seams. Very heavy and Very warm and by the time you are done making it, you will have done your workout for the day!
Don't get me wrong, I love the two that I have created and everyone should experience making at least one in their lifetime, but be forewarned, it will take a bit of doing to make this masterpiece, but every time my son goes camping, I know he will be warm and my arms will be around him as he sleeps in the middle of nowhere