How many pair of jeans for a quilt?
 

My local SA has women's jeans for 50 cents a pair. They appear to be 'normal' sizes. How many pair would it take to make a lap quilt? I might have cut up a pair of mine tonight to get an estimate.

Make sure you aren't wearing them when you cut them!!

I will be watching this thread since my daughter brought over a bag of jeans a couple of weeks ago. Both my daughters want jeans quilts for camping and outdoor use.

Doesn't it depend on how many holes they have?

I made 2 jeans quilts. I found size 56 & 60 mens new at a goodwill several years ago. I bought 20 pairs and striped the legs into 2 1/2 strips for a log cabin. I rolled the strips and they filled with extra a large postal mailing box. I only used half. Quilt was very heavy. The second one I used yardage.. you will find out why later.... good luck and don't forget to use a size 14 or 16 jeans needle for the constuctiomn.

For a lap quilt I used 12 pair...some were men's and some were teenage size. The quilt was 54x68 when finished. Used a light weight fleece on the back.

I thought you would like to see the one that I did with denim yardage and some of the left over strips from the 1st quilt. I don't have a finished picture, but this is the layout. I put borders in the blue denim and then tied it with flat red heart buttons. It turned out great! I will have to see if I can get my son to take a picture of it, but here it is pre assembly
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Get the largest size jeans you can. Use decorative pockets or designs from them. The larger size blocks mean less seams and less weight. I'd say , start out with a dozen or so jeans and see how much you get after cutting them up. Do one first and see how you feel about it.

I like Log Cabin - that's my favorite layout. I have some jeans in my car, but they are size 1s, so I don't see getting much denim from them. The ones at the Salvation Army looked larger. I am concerned about cutting them. My son is here for the week end. I should run and get the jeans and put him to work. I am thinking of the quilt with demin circles and bright fabrics in the windows in a large lap size. I want to use the fronts to make aprons for the church bazaar and the legs for the quilt.

One thing you have to remember about cutting into the legs of the jeans - GRAIN LINE! It is so easy just to follow the side seams or the inseams when cutting the strips, but you have to treat them just like fabric and remember the grain line. If you cut following the inseam, your strips will have a slight bias edge and if they were not cut on the grain with the side seam, the same will also be true. You may loose more fabric than you realize.. hens yardage for the next one ;)