Thursday, July 21, 2005

The Denim Quilt -

When Mom died, I was recipient of all of the denim she had saved, some since the 70's. I had no idea what I was going to do with it. Late one Summer aftrenoon on the way to the gas station to fill up the truck, I saw a sign for an estate sale and my truck automatically pulled over to the curb. In the basement was a 1909 Singer Walking Foot Industrial sewing machine, the estate was that of a sail maker and the machine was for the canvas.

I bought the machine, table and treaddle for $20.00 and home I went. The fabric told me what it wanted done, and I did it one square, one picture at a time. The hard part was trying to figure out how the pictures were going to go together. I don't do much in a 'traditional' manner, so tieing, or quilting the layers together would have been a cop-out to me. All of the material was from Jeans, the only logical artistic continuity was to use Jean Rivets like the pocket re-enforcements on Levi's Pockets and seams.
When finished, this King Sized Quilt weighed over 30 pounds. It won the People's Choice Award at Clatsop County Fair, and was 1 of only 2 quilts made by Men featured in the PBS Special, "The Oregon Quilt".

2 Comments:

Blogger Geo said...

I found you because of your knit content (which I love--nice stuff), but here I've also found a quilting gem. Wow, it's terrific! Very inspirational. I dream of finding such a machine as you took home for a mere 20 bucks. It was meant to be for you, wasn't it? Thanks for sharing.

9:54 AM  
Blogger Agnes said...

This is just fantastic! I also have saved some old jeans which I couldn't fit into or the style simply won't do for me anymore ... you inspired me to do something with them.

9:30 AM  

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