Recycled Fibers~ A Little Summer Sewing

I haven't had much time for sewing this summer, but I did manage to finish a couple of small recycled fabric projects back in June, before Tayta and I traveled for her surgery. I'd been wanting to try a recycled denim picnic/beach blanket since seeing this one over at Little Birdie Secrets. I thought it would be just the thing to give to Dear Daughter for a hostess gift when we visited her in Evanston.

I've been collecting our cast-off jeans for awhile and had enough for this blanket. I used about eight pairs of jeans. I think mixing the different shades of denim makes it look interesting, as do the the contrasting pockets, cut from the original pair of jeans and then re-sewn on the legs before assembling the blanket. The tutorial linked above was helpful for showing how to cut the legs of the jeans apart.

As for the seams, I sewed them differently than the tutorial: I sewed a regular half inch seam, pressed it open, and then zig-zagged  the pressed seam allowance down onto the blanket. Here is what the seams look like on top of the blanket:

And here is what they look like on the backside of the blanket:

I used collar scraps from mens' corduroy shirts for the binding. Next time I will make a wider binding.

A table mat/runner was the other scrappy project I finished in June. This small piece has more mistakes in it than I care to mention, but the good thing about it is it is the project which helped me decided that I needed to invest in a walking foot for my sewing machine if I planned to do more machine quilting. I spent my birthday money on a walking foot, purchasing it just before Active Son traveled to Jordan, and I was able to finish quilting this without further frustration. Good investment. This mat was made from scraps of mens' dress shirts, mostly leftovers from Artist Son's quilt. The pattern inspiration comes, again, from Victoria Gertenbach.