Denim Blankets

Now that I've been showing these finished pictures in my Friday Progress report for weeks (if not months) I finally got around to writing a little more about them. So if you'll bare with me, let's pretend these are new finishes, and let me talk about them a little bit more than I have.

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This was my first time working with fleece, but I knew I wanted something thick enough that the seams of the denim patches wouldn't be annoying. Four yards of fleece was just enough to back both blankets - I can't believe I was that lucky!

I did a quick turn and stitched the edges closed. I had intended to go back and add a little more stitching in the centers to keep everything held together, but after a week of test use, they didn't seem to need it and I went without. Which frankly, was for the better.

The smaller of the two wasn't so bad to stitch closed -

but the larger one fought me in one spot where there were just a few too many layers.

I may yet go back and try to fix that spot, but I may just let it go. I'm a little nervous to try again considering it pulled my needle out of place. It took about ten minutes and a set of pliers to get it back out again. So I'm a little afraid.

Not quite stitched or not, the larger one is staying here anyway. Since it's so heavy, I figured it would be a great winter weight sofa blanket, but the moment it was done my husband grabbed it and started talking about how perfect it would be for his new comforter. I'd been planning to make him a new comforter soon (since his old one is getting holey!) but if he wants to use this for a while, that's fine by me. I think it's a little small - it's slightly narrower and slightly shorter than a twin - but he like to have his limbs exposed, so he's excited.

The smaller of the two, which is closer to a square, is headed off to my friend and her family. I started working on it for her first, shortly after seeing a photo of her trying to use her son's quilt as a picnic blanket. (Which, don't get me wrong, quilts are meant to be used, but his is a little small for an adult to sit on, much less an adult or two and a child or two!) While this one may not keep up if her family gets bigger, I'm hoping it'll be large enough to hold a few picnicers.

All thread used came completely from my stash - I used this as a chance to use up some strange colors, each quilt has several different colors in the patchwork stitching. All denim came from either my closet or my parents' closet. We're pretty hard on denim around here, but it's been fun to take the pieces that have some life left in them and turn them into something more useful (I hope!).

It'll probably be a while before my denim stash is replenished, but I've made a little bit of progress on a third already. Mainly by accident. I don't have a real process - I mainly start with a block and build off it in every direction until it's too heavy, then start over with a new piece. Eventually I attach the large pieces together. This large piece didn't manage to get attached to either of the tops I was working on, so I guess it'll be the foundation of the next one!