SERGE DE NIMES - DENIM - BLUE JEANS

In the spring of 2013 it was 140 years since this unique invention, the Blue Jeans, was patented in America by the German immigrant merchant Levi Strauss and the tailor Jacob Davis. These robust trousers were first made from brown canvas for the gold miners of San Francisco. Soon after the canvas was replaced by blue colored strong denim, produced in the beginning in Nimes, France - the Blue Jeans was born. Rivets, the blue color and the orange/yellow stitching were characteristic features of Levis Jeans. However it took many years till the blue trousers turned into a cult. Rebellious youth in the 1950s, inspired by movie stars like Marlon Brando and James Dean, started to move the blue pants into the fashion world. Today they are an inseparable part of it.

Some weeks ago a boutique owner in Tel Aviv decided to alter his huge collection of unsold jeans by having the legs cut off and making them into shorts. To tell the story quick, I got the cut off legs, which had all the typical jeans colors, from dark, almost black, to hues of blue. Some were bleached, some torn, some wide, some narrow.

My first intent was to create bags from them (which surely I still will do), but I don't need a lot of fabric for bags, and there were so many legs! Then I remembered that I once saw quilted blankets with raw edged seams in a magazine which I liked very much. So I got the idea to transfer the denim legs into a patchwork quilt. 

I also had a large amount of fleece remnants in many colors and decided to use them for the back to make the blanket warm and cozy.

I started to rip the legs apart and continued cutting squares from them. I sandwiched each denim square with a fleece patch and quilted an X on it, then sewed rows alternating the colors dark and light, and connected them. After the blanket was constructed I snipped the seam allowances in short intervals with sharp scissors, laundered the quilt in the washing machine and put it in the dryer. That caused the open seams to get all fluffy and made the blanket look wonderfully textured.

The double size quilt is a gift for my daughter-in-law, because first of all I love her and second, it was she who rescued the cut off legs and brought them to me. Now I still have so many left that I will make a smaller one for my grandson too.

Luna helped me with the photographing watching me carefully! :-) And I love her shadow and the reflection of the clouds on the car.