Bone Crusher Quilts

I grew up in a drafty farm house and every winter the quilts would come out and be stacked on the beds.  The heaviest of the quilts were called bone crushers because of how heavy they were.  The best bone crushers were made from denim, old, soft, worn denim from our old jeans and overalls.  I still love denim quilts, although now I prefer the lighter “rag” quilts as opposed to the traditional quilt top with batting, binding, and backing.

My Mother made an awesome denim quilt for my son with stars and even the pockets from the jeans.  I love it, he has been using it for a couple of years and it just get softer and softer and it is super warm.

I also made some matching curtains, they are a little short for the windows in our new house, but I’ll just add another strip at the bottom.  I’m also going to add a lining to make it a little more insulating, his room is on the North side of our house.

These curtains were so easy to make, I just tore the legs of jeans to get a straight edge and sewed them together the wider strips are from the back of the pants and the narrow ones are the front.  I put the seams on the right side and snipped them about ever 1/4” and put them into to washing machine to fray them.

I love denim, it is such a versatile, long wearing fabric.  I just wanted to share some of the great projects I have made with it.  I have started a shag style rug, the strips are cut and I just need to decide what kind of backing to use and how big to make it.  I’m lucky, I seem to have a never ending supply of denim, everyone in our family saves it, and if I do need more I can always pick up a few pairs of jeans at the Goodwill on dollar days!  What kind of great projects have you made using denim?