The quilts

When Andrew was in preschool (yes, 2 years ago) he started to rip the knees out of his jeans. Sometimes he would rip them on the playground at school, but many of them would get ripped when he would slide on his knees down our hallway- because I guess that is fun? The real problem was the fact that he wouldn't wear the jeans after they had holes in the knees. I tried and tried to get him to wear them but he wouldn't. As the jeans piled up I thought about what I could do with them. I didn't think that even Goodwill would even want jeans with ripped out knees. So, I have been storing them, along with many other pairs over the past two years, in the garage. As I was getting the bins of baby clothes out of the garage for Grant I saw the pile of jeans again. I finally decided to make a quilt for Andrew out of the fabric. This should be quick and easy right? Well, it probably would have been quick if I hadn't decided to start the week before the baby was born. And it wasn't really hard except for some technical difficulties as well as trying to complete the quilt while sleep deprived.

The project started out with a large pile of jeans like these with ripped knees. My mom was the one who helped me cut out out all of the squares of fabric from the pants. We cut around some of the back pockets on the jeans so that Andrew would know that the fabric was actually from his pants.

After all the squares were cut out and laid out, I determined that there were actually enough squares to make two quilts, so I decided to make one for Claire as well. My mom also convinced me to add fabric borders around the edges for a more finished feel. The week before Grant was born I took Andrew and Claire to the fabric store to pick out fleece for the back of the quilt.

Here I am trimming the excess fleece fabric after completing the top. I actually finished the top of Claire's quilt as I was in labor with Grant! Note Claire has scissors in her hands here. She really has a scissor obsession and I really have to watch her. I have been doing all of this sewing on our kitchen table, so scissors and other supplies were left out. She was constantly grabbing the scissors asking to cut things up - mostly paper, but I didn't want her have another impromptu haircut.

Here Andrew and Claire decided to use the excess fleece fabric for scarves. It was really cute until they figured out that they can also use the fabric as weapons. Yes, anything can be used as a weapon, in this case as a whip. Ugghhhh.

Here are the finished products, front and back. They are intended to be used as lap quilts while watching TV. Hopefully they will be something that they both keep for a long time. In all it took about 6 weeks to complete the project. I'm glad I stuck with it because the kids love them. The cat also quite likes the fleece side. Everytime the kids leave them on the sofa you will find Hannah asleep on them moments later. Maybe I should make her a quilt too???