Denim rag quilt
 

I have some jeans I want to make a rag quilt out of but ordered "denim" charms from Nancy's Notions to find that they are simply cotton squares in nice colors. sigh. I would think I can still use them in the rag quilt right? five inches is small though to have to cut out of the jeans but the sizes must match. anyone mixed these?

I have. Denim on one side and cotton fabric on the other side. The second picture is the front side (well what I call front) and the first is the back side. My squares were six inches starting off. Ended up five inches after sewing together. Its pretty big. 20 squares by 20 squares = 100"x100".

I love your quilt Queenbarbie!
It will work just fine. I've made 2 of these. The first one with flannel on one side, the 2nd with quilting cotton.
And, of course one was the first quilt I ever tried making, so I made it Huge.
This is what I learned:
1. It's heavy. Without batting...it's heavy. And flannel is heavier than cotton.

2. Use 1/2 inch seams. 1/4 inch seams are way too small to get a good fringed edge around the blocks.

3. Hand quilting denim is not easy on the fingers. I hand quilted a flower shape inside each square on the first quilt instead of just an 'x' because I was intending to put a cute button in some or all of the centers, and I had never tried quilting by machine yet. But...remember I said it was heavy? I decided I shouldn't add anymore weight. So...no buttons. But it would have been cute.

On the second one, I used blue, red, black and green denim squares, and I substituded a few of the plain denim squares with back pockets cut from the jeans. Just for fun. Then, I just had to sew a bandera hankie in a couple of those.
Have fun with yours Nativetexan.
:)

thanks i think I will. just ordered a bit more "denim" fabric. now to figure out how many squares i can get out of the jeans!

You can always mix more than one size patch in a rag quilt. I mix fabrics in mine, usually flannel and corduroy (for its texture), but you can certainly mix the jeans fabric and regular cotton. I have a stack of old jeans that I've been saving for some kind of quilt.

Or, you can cut bigger denim squares and put your cotton squares inside them, for a Windows Denim Quilt. The denim squares are sewn into rows, then the seam allowance becomes the front of the quilt. Place a square of batting and a square of cotton inside the seams. Fold the seams down, then zig-zag them in place.

What about making 4 patches with smaller pieces and size them up to match? I've got a project all ready to go, cut to size, center pieces ready to go as well as the batting as we live in a cold section of the country.

Quilted Sunshine! I love your denim quilt. Love it!

That's neat, Quiltedsunshine! Do you think it could be made with 'raggier' ends on the cotton side? I've got to try this...love it!

I've been thinking of using the five inch charms i got but framing them to fit what ever size i cut of denim fabrics. I did a quilt of charms and cut some into four patches but added skinny strips in between the small squares so the four patch blocks would fit the charm size. worked well. So something like that.
I have a line on more denim from a fellow quilter, so that is good too!
Dunster, i did a rag quilt with cottons in greens and corduroy in red with sprinkles of green. I still love that quilt!