Six years ago, I wrote tongue-in-cheek about denim whiskers. It's even bigger a thing now than it was then!!! Websites have pages dedicated to the fad!!!
Whiskering
What are "whiskers"?
Denim Hunters
A denim vocabulary?!?
(Turns out I'm a denimhead...)
More denim than you ever thought possible
Fashion Statement
I've saved old jeans for ages. At one point, way back in the early '80s, I was making a puzzle quilt from Ragtime and Elephant Ear jeans I'd worn as a teenager, along with straight-leg jeans from my four younger brothers handed down so many times, I had just about every shade of super pastel indigo you could imagine.
Alas, my first (and former) husband ignited the entire project (along with many other WIPs) in a burn barrel back in about 1987 because he thought the grocery bags I stored everything in were trash. There was a rainbow sweater in there I'd been knitting for my youngest sister for about three years. There were T-shirts from all my siblings' band and choir days. All my concert T-shirts were in there. Even my prized Fleetwood Mac T-shirt. (No, that's not why we divorced, but it was pretty traumatic!)
I started a new jeans collection immediately after, and I've made a good many projects since then. I'm always on the lookout for new ideas. And old jeans!
I no longer have the first (or second or third) denim skirt or the one-of-a-kind classic '80s blazer (each pattern piece came from a different pair of jeans) I fashioned from old jeans back in the '80s, but I do still have the vest I made in approximately 1995...
... and the jean jacket I made from three different pairs of ice-wash jeans in about 1998.
I've had four or five denim reindeer bodies ready to be assembled since about 1999. I finally finished one last weekend because I decided our electric fireplace needed one. And because it was a WIP, and because it's nearly Christmas, and because it felt good to play with denim again.
And look what I found when I was looking for buttons I could use for eyes for the denim reindeer! Remember these?!? Remember prices like this?!?
Here are some wonderful ideas for denim rugs. I might have to get creative and do something floorish with all the jeans hems one day after I get done cutting up the next batch that's destined for a quilt. (No more new WIPS until I get a few done, but I'm dreaming about a flannel and denim rag quilt!)
Linking up with Alycia Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict. #Reindeer #Repurpose #Finished #WIPs #Christmas
