Denim Rug Project Completed

Finished rug.

I know I had said this blog post would be online yesterday.  However, the weather was not cooperating.  As usual, I was working up until the last minute.  The rug was not finished until yesterday.  After lunch I started working on the blog post.  I had most of it written when a thunderstorm blew up.  One minute the sun was out.  The next minute it was pouring rain with thunder and lightening.  I had to shut down the computer.  The storm passed and I started working on the blog post again.   The thunder and lightening started up again.  I turned off the computer.  The storm passed.  I turned on the computer and started back to work; another storm.  When the third storm came through I decided to take it as a sign that I was not going to get the blog post up until the next day.  I started again this morning in order to avoid the storms forecast for the afternoon.  The paragraph below is where the post began yesterday.

Raw edges frayed and left a lot of lint.

Folded strips to be sewn on the open edge.

I am excited to be blogging that my denim rug is completed!  It was months in the making.  I worked really hard this weekend in order to finish it before this post.  The photo of the rug is not where it will be used, but in the best place for me to get a good picture of it.

To recap the project, I had seen a denim rug in a magazine.  The magazine had given minimal instructions on how to make the rug.  Basically it was made like a latch hook rug.  The picture of the rug was not a close up.  It was part of a photo of a room.  Once I started on the rug, I discovered that the denim unraveled and left threads everywhere.  I decided that I would try to make the rug in a different manner so that the raw edges were enclosed.  I began looking at different types of rugs online.  Many people have made them, but few gave much information on how they made the rug.  I experimented with couple of options, but my efforts were hampered by my already having cut the strips for the rug to a certain width.  The strips were too wide to work well with crocheting a rug.  I decided to weave it.  I made a primitive loom and made the rug.  It took months, although some of that was due to my traveling.  I did not have as much time as I would have liked to work on the rug.

Strips rolled into 8 foot rolls.

How I made the loom from dowels, clamps and rubber bands.

Last week I said that I would post what I learned about making a denim rug so that all the information would finally end up on one page rather than scattered across numerous posts.  If you are considering making a denim rug you might want to consider whether it will be worth the effort and expense.

I had a number of pair of old jeans that were ready to be donated.  I also asked my friends if they had any jeans they were ready to part with.  I did buy a few pair, but not many.  The jeans were in many different shades of blue.  I thought that using multiple colors would be an interesting experiment.  You could not tell in advance exactly what the rug would look like.

I began with cutting up old denim jeans into two inch wide strips.  I lost count, but I know that it was twelve or more pairs of jeans.  The strips were all different lengths, so they were sewn together to make eight foot (2.44 meters) long strips.  The seams were pressed open.

Final strip was pinned before being taken off the loom.

I chose eight foot lengths because I did not know how much length would be taken up by going over and under each strip.  It actually did not take up as much length as I thought it would.  The finished rug ended up being five feet eight inches (1.75 meters).  I had about two feet (0.61 meter) of strip left on each roll.  The strips were made up of a number of different colors of denim.  I tried to make some strips in graduated colors from light to dark and some strips with light and dark in the middle and the medium colors on the ends.   By mixing up the colors I hoped that I would not get too many of one color clumped in one spot.  There are a few areas on the rug that have too much of the same color in one area, but that is normal when you are working with random colors.  You never know what patterns will emerge from chaos.  (Sorry, I had better not get started on chaos theory.)

After being removed from the loom.

 I started out by making the strips nine feet, but decided that was going to be too long.  I did not go back and cut down the strips that were too long, which caused me some problems later.  Make sure your strips are all the same length.  The longer rolls stood taller on the loom than the others and tended to want to fall over on their sides.

I made the cross pieces several inches longer than they needed to be because I was not sure how much of the length would be taken up.  All of the strips were made the same length.  Not only was I using material while weaving the strips, I also had to account for areas that were bulky where the lengthwise strips were joined together.  It was surprising at how much difference there could be between strips.  Sometimes it would be three inches longer and sometimes five inches longer. 

Bottom edged needed to be straightened.

The raw edges of the strips raveled and left blue threads and blue lint everywhere.  My workroom and my clothes were covered in lint.  To keep down the lint and threads I folded the strips in half and ironed them so that I would have a center line.  Both raw edges were folded in the center line, then folded in half so that there were finished edges on the outside.  The open edge was sewn closed  At first I was pinning the strips, but later realized that was not really necessary.

Each strip was 1/2 an inch (1.27 cm) wide and eight feet (2.44 meters long).  I made all the strips for the length and crosswise before I started weaving.  Each of the long strips was rolled up into a roll and tied with string to keep in from unraveling. 

I made a loom using three 3/4-inch (1.90 cm) dowels, four rubber bands, two small clamps, and dozens of long straight pens.   I slipped one of the dowels through the center of each roll of strips.  The rolls were set on top of the two other dowels and rubber bands were used to keep tension on the upper dowel.  I also used a clamp on each end to keep the rolls of strips tightly against each other.  A picture is worth a thousand words on this.  (Hopefully, you will be able to see what I am talking about rather than going into a long explanation.)  A straight pin was sunk into each roll.  This helped keep the rolls from unspooling too quickly.  There might have been easier ways to make a loom, but this method only cost $3.89 for the dowels.  I already had rubber bands and clamps.

Once the loom was set up, I sewed on the first cross piece.  It had to be hand stitched to each of the long pieces.  There may have been a way to machine stitch it, but given my work area, I could not configure the loom to set up to the sewing machine.  The rest of the cross pieces were only hand stitched on each end.  The hand stitching was just to hold the pieces in place until everything had been woven.  I just did a basic over and under weave.  Once the weaving was finished it was machine stitched all the way around.

Every row had to be tightened down to the one before it.  Since my loom did not have a shuttle, I used a crochet hook to grab each section of the fabric and pull it snugly to the strip before it. Snug is a relative term.  You want it as close to the previous piece as possible without pulling so hard that you deform the shape of the strip.

I wove until I had used up all the strips that could be used without bunching up one color at the end.  Since I was working with a lot of donated material I had to work with what colors were available.  I was truly ready for this project to come to an end by this time.  If I had equal amount of all colors, I could have made the rug another foot longer.

When I was ready to take the rug off the loom, I used straight pins to hold the last row together.  I did not want to cut the remaining strip material until after I had taken the piece off the loom in case it needed some adjustment somewhere.  Something might have been pulled too tight or left too loose and needed tightening up.   There were a couple of places on the first row that had pulled up a bit and needed a little adjustment, but I did not have to move any of the pins to release more of the strips.  Still it was better to be safe than sorry.  Once I had the rug adjusted, I basted the last row, removed the straight pins, and took the rug to the sewing machine.  I sewed all the way around the entire rug to make sure that the ends were all sewn securely.

There was a lot of hand sewing to attach all then ends of the cross pieces.  I was sewing through eight layers of denim.  I used finger covers to help reduce the pressure on my fingers.  They worked well when I was moving the straight pins around to release the tension on the strips on the loom..  They did not work well for putting the straight pins back.  The ends of the pins poked holes in the rubber.  By the end, I was using my leather thumb thimble with a plastic thumb thimble inserted inside for further protection.  You will need these to protect your fingers from pressure damage.

One final thing:  I had to clean my sewing machine twice during the project.  The lint build up was worse than on any project I have ever worked on.  Now that the project is over I will give the machine a good cleaning and oiling.  I have an old machine and I do the maintenance on it myself. 

That is the end of this project.  Next blog post I will be writing about my next project.  Check back next Monday afternoon.

Close to Completing the Denim Rug

Today is just a quick update on the denim rug project.  I have been weaving a lot since my last blot post.  I think I have about a foot left to go.   I have several colors of denim in this project and I am soon going to run out of most colors except for the darkest indigo.  When I reach a point where all I have left are the darkest strips, I will stop.  I don't want to cut up any more jeans.  The rug is long enough that I don't want to add too much more.

I don't have any new pictures.  The rug is very heavy and I had to use a large plastic container to support the it.  As the rug lengthened, I had to keep folding it up on top of the container.  You can't see how long the rug is.  I can't pull the rug out because it will change the tension on the strips.  It would be a lot of work to get things back in place if I move them.  Just imagine the picture above about three feet longer, and you will get an idea of how long the rug is right now.

I think that by next week I will be finished with the weaving.  I will be blogging about my method of removing the rug from the loom.  Also, I will blog about what worked and what did not work well on this project, so readers will have the best practices all in one  post.

I probably won't be able to get the post up until late Sunday afternoon.  Things have changed on my schedule, so Sunday mornings are not available any more. 

Finally! The Denim Rug Project Moves Forward.

The woven rug so far.

I know that I have not been posting regularly lately.  This project has been taking a long time to get to a point that I had something new worth showing to my readers.  Before I went too far on making the rug, I needed to get my strips made.  They took a long time to make.  I had to convert a pile of cut up denim jeans into strips and make them into folded strips with the raw edges on the inside.  All in all, I have made 480 feet (146.30 meters) of 1/2 inch wide (1.27 cm.) strips.  It took a long time.  

The top row needs to be pulled closer to the row beneath it.

Also, early in the project I completely changed directions on this project.  What started as a simple hooked rug changed into a woven rug.  Once I realized just how much the denim frayed and unraveled, I decided that I really did not want a rug that left so much lint and bits of thread all over the floor.  The picture in the magazine looked nice, but it was shot from a distance.  Up close it did not look like something I would want in my house.  I decided that I really needed to change the plan, which caused this project to take much longer than I thought it would.

Keeping the ties on the rolls turned out to be a bad idea.

Readers that have an interest in making a rug like this can scroll back through my earlier posts to get more detail on how to make the project.  For this post I want to relate some of the things I have learned along the way on making the project since the last few posts.

A small portion of the strips needed for the project.

I had made a makeshift loom to hold all my strips.  It is still working well, but there have been a couple of small modifications.  I added a clamp to each end of the bar holding my rolls of strips.  As I released tension on the loom to pull down on the long strips, the strips on each end tended to loosen a bit and the rolls fall over to the side.   The clamps help hold the rolls of strips upright.  It is just an extra precaution to keep the rolls from becoming too loose.  I need to keep the rolls tightly together in order to keep the width of the rug accurate.  While I am on the subject of adding clamps, I intend to use some clamps to hold the loom to my work table.  It has not been a problem yet, but at some point the rug is going to be heavy enough that it could pull the loom off the table.  I have lost count of how many pairs of jeans I have used, but it is at least twelve pairs of adult size jeans.

I found that it is important to measure the width after I wove in each new strip.  I want the edges of the rug to be even.  I also had to tighten down each row on a regular basis.  I want the rug to be tightly woven so that it will not shift when it is walked upon. 

Between weaving, tightening and measuring, each strip takes about thirteen minutes to complete the process.  I have timed it a number of times.  My best time was twelve minutes and fifteen seconds.  Every inch of length takes about half an hour.  My estimate on weaving the rug is seventy-two hours, and that is if everything goes right.  Sometimes things can go wrong.  At times I have missed a strip while weaving or I ran into some trouble when trying to loosen the strips.  (More on that in a moment.)

If you have been following this project all along you might remember that I started the project with all the rolls tied.  That turned out to be a mistake.  It worked well for a while, but since each roll was tied as I rolled it up the rolls did not have the ties in the same place.  At about eighteen inches (45.72 cm.) into weaving the strips, things started to become snarled.  I ended up having to take out all those binding threads.  I went back to using straight pins to hold the rolls of thread together, which was part of my original plan, but something I gave up when I thought the tied rolls were going to work by themselves.  At this point, I am back to using a straight pin in each roll.

As I weave the rug, I have to loosen the loom and release a little bit of length on the strips.  I have found that I can only release about three inches at a time.  If I do more than that the tension does not hold the strips in line and the strips start falling over onto other strips making it hard to figure out which strip should be the next in line.  I learned this the hard way.  One time I had the bright idea of trying to release six inches or seven inches at once.  It was a real mess trying to get everything sorted out.  I lost about three hours trying to set things right.  Now that the strips are no longer tied I have to take off all the straight pins and gently pull on the bottom of the carpet to release the rolls.  It is time consuming to take out and replace all the pins, but I think that it saves me time in the long run by keeping a proper amount of tension on the threads and by keeping them in line.

I might also add that I had underestimated just how hard this project was going to be on my hands.  If I work an hour at a time my hands will be sore for hours sometimes even overnight.  Arnica gel helps with that.  At this point I am trying to limit my work time to no more half hour a day.  This project is still going to take a while.

Since I took the rug photo I have actually added a couple more inches.  The project is moving forward toward completion.  No doubt I have more to learn along the way.  Keep checking back on the blog and I will let you know what else comes up.  

Progress Update on Denim Rug Project

I did not blog last week.  Usually that means I am out on the road somewhere, but that was not the case this time.  I was dealing with a very large Microsoft update.  It was giving me a lot of grief.  I am sure that part of the problem is that we do not have high speed internet, but the other part of the problem is definitely an internet provider problem.  I tried to get the update on Friday.  The download quit after 1%.  The same thing happened the next night.  On Sunday I finally was able to get the whole update, but it took just short of twenty-four hours to download it.  I never had a chance to get onto the blog that day at all.

Anyway, I only have a brief update on the denim rug project.  I am still slogging along on making the strips needed to weave the rug.  The good news is that I am now about two thirds of the way finished with the strips.  They take a fair amount of time to make a strip.  I will usually work for an hour, taking a short break after thirty minutes just to move around a bit.  It seems like I have just started when the timer goes off telling me my crafting time is up and I need to get on with the day.  I wish I could say that I craft every day, but that is no longer the case.  I am so busy now that I am lucky to get in an hour or two a week.

I am fortunate that I have a dedicated craft room and I can leave things just as they were when I hit the stop point.  If I had put away the sewing machine and materials every time I would have even less time to work on the project.  I hope (fingers crossed) that in the next couple of weeks I will complete making the strips.  Maybe that is wishful thinking, but it should be soon.  I think that once I get to the point of actually weaving the strips the project will quickly come to completion.

I want to have all of the strips completed before I get to far into the weaving because I don't want too much of any color ending up in one spot.  I am trying to keep to alternating dark, medium and light colors of denim.  Many of the denims may just be only a slightly different tone from each other.  It has been a challenge to keep the pattern going.

More Trip Photos

This last trip to the cabin we did very little work.   Much of our time was spent sitting on the screened-in porch enjoying some well-deserved time off.  We have been so busy lately that it seems like we never even have a chance to sit down.  It was nice to have some time off to just sit and relax without have to get up and start working the moment the sun comes up.

The stream is flowing slower at this time of year.  The snow melt is over and the heavier rains of springtime have slowed down somewhat.  It has still been a fairly wet year, so the stream still has a nice rushing sound.  It's continuous sound is a wonderful white noise that never stops.  When I read while sitting on the porch I have to get up frequently to keep from becoming drowsy. 

While we were out driving, we came across a bob cat crossing the road the gravel road that was near a stream.  It is unusual to see one at all.  It was not the time of day that they usually hunt, so I think that it might have gone down to the stream to drink.  It was a good sized cat.  I think it was almost fully grown.  When I was reading about them they said they can grow to about forty inches long.  I don't think that the bob cat was quite that big, so probably it was an older juvenile.

The bob cat did not seem to be afraid of us.  The cat had some attitude.  Clearly it heard our truck coming on the road from some distance away.  It stood there in the middle of the road until the truck came into sight.  Once we were in view, it looked at us then turned and walked up the ridge into cover.    It did not run, or show fear, it merely moved out of the way.  I think the cat was trying to show that it considered this his (or her) territory.  The message was clear that it considered itself more than a match for us. 

Our friends were in residence at one of the other cabins.  We spent an enjoyable day at a cook out over there.  The weather was just about as perfect a temperature as you can have for a cook out.  For most of the day it was partly sunny.  We did have a couple of showers that came through.  Fortunately there were some pop up tents.  Everyone ran under them and crowded together until the rain passed.  The shower only lasted a few minutes.  A good day was had by all.  

At this time of the year the hay is being harvested.  Some fields have been cut.  Others are still awaiting the machine to come and cut the field.  Once the hay has been cut down, it stays laying in the field until it dries.  Once dry, another machine comes by and rolls it into huge cylindrical bales.  A photo shows some hay that has recently been rolled into cylinders.

I love Spring because everything is so beautifully green.  Even structures that are rusted or faded look beautiful then.  It is a treat to just go riding around the countryside and see what there is to see.

Next week I will be blogging about my latest projects again.  Check back next Sunday.

Photos from the Road May-June 2019

Regular readers may have guessed that my recent absence is because I have been on the road again.  I really enjoy traveling this time of year.  Everything is green and growing.  Even if I am going over the same roads again and again, things appear different each time.

I also enjoy seeing what else is on the road.  Sometimes I see classic cars.  Other times it might be a humorous sign.  There is always something new to catch my attention.  This time, I saw a monster truck being pulled on a trailer.  I don't know if this is a mudder type vehicle or whether it was going to a competition somewhere.  It is not something I normally see on the road. 

This truck was rather humorous because it was so heavy that it seemed to be lifting the front of the trailer and the back end of the truck towing it up rather high.

When we are at the cabin and head for the dump at the end of our stay, we always go past this metal sign of a horse and rider.  It is so well done that many people look at the picture and think that I have a photo capturing a horse and rider in sillhouette.  There is a business not far from this area that makes the metal signs.  I expect that it came from there. 

I don't have much time right now, but I will post more pictures to the blog on Sunday.  Check back then.

Denim Rug Project - Sewing Techniques

Last week I made a long blog post on this project.  If you would like more detailed information on this project, please scroll back through the posts for this year. 

Since I posted last week, I have been working on putting together denim strips.   I have been cutting denim strips for the project and sewing them into thirty-inch strips.  Since not all of the strips are long enough on their own, I have two sew two or three pieces together.  Then the pieces have to be folded in half to find the center line, and the outer edges are folded into the center.  Once the strips are folded, they are sewn along the open edge.  This minimizes the fraying.  My week has been very busy, but I managed to get thirty-one strips completed.

Making the strips is quite time consuming.   I have streamlined the operation somewhat, so I thought I would mention that today.   When I first started making the strips I was ironing each one in half and then ironing again with the outer edges folded into the middle.  I was even pinning the strips so that they would not come apart.  This made the sewing go faster, but it was adding to the prep time for each strip.  After experimenting with a couple of different methods, I finally decided that the strips did not need pinning.  Nor did they need me to be so meticulous with the ironing. 

What I am doing now is folding the strip in half and ironing it down so that I have an easily visible center line.  After I have many strips folded in half I go to the sewing machine.  I fold the out edges of the length of the strip to the center and sew across the end of the strip to secure it.  With the needle down, I turn the strip lengthwise and slowly fold in the fabric to the center as it is sewn down.  It means starting and stopping the sewing machine frequently.  Stop with the needle down, or turn the knob to drop the needle when you stop.  Before I sew the next segment, I check to make sure the edges of the open side are even.  When reaching then end of the strip, turn the strip crosswise and sew back and forth to secure the fabric.  This is not a quick process, but it is quicker than what I was doing before, with no loss of quality in the strip.

I have not done any weaving on the rug this week.  I am considering making an adjustment to the strips that are already woven.  I have a small amount of very light denim.  It is such a pale blue that it is almost white. There are two strips of it woven into the rug.  It really stands out from the other fabrics.  The strips are also a very light-weight shirt fabric and they tend to deform when the other strips press up against them.  I don't think I have enough of it to make it look as if it really belongs in the rug.  I will remove those strips and replace them with a different color.  Sometimes I have to make adjustments to the project.  That is okay.  Not everything is perfect on the first attempt.

That is where I am on the project at this time.  Before I go further, I want to have the rest of the strips made.  That will help me make sure that I don't have too much of one color of denim in one place.  At this point, I have just about reached the end of the denim jeans I have available.  I will need to get some more, before I can complete the strips.

I will be blogging about my quilt project next week.  Hopefully, that will keep the blog posts on the project from becoming monotonous.

Progress on the Denim Rug Project

Fraying denim.

I have been working on the denim rug project for a while.  After a long period of very little progress, I have finally started moving forward on this project.  I will give a brief summary of the project to date so that new readers will have some background on the project.  Sometimes, knowing what went wrong is as important as knowing what went right.  For more detail, scroll back through my blog posts for this year. 

Folded strips waiting to be sewn.

I started this project near the beginning of the year.  I had been warned by a friend who knew someone who had made a denim rug that it was one of those projects that could really bog a person down.  The person said she would never make another.  I have found that this was true.  When I finish this project I am never going to make another one either.  So, if you are planning on making a denim rug, I suggest you read this post and ask yourself just how badly you want a denim rug.

Rolls of denim.

 Cost can be a factor in this project.  To keep costs down, I was using old denim jeans of my own plus some collected from friends.  I calculated the cost of the rug in my initial project would have been about four hundred dollars (US) if I had purchased old denim jeans from thrift stores.  The down side of collecting random jeans is that you end up with a variety of colors and weights of denim.

Dowels and bands hold fabric strips in place.

When I started the rug project, I was working from some minimal directions that came with a magazine article.  The picture of the rug in the article, shot from from a distance, looked nice, but when I was browsing online, I decided that this type of rug was not my style.  Also, the article did not mention that the cut pieces of denim were going to fray badly and leave little bits of denim threads everywhere.  At first, I thought, "No problem, I will just zig zag the denim so it won't fray.  That only helped marginally.  It was still fraying.  The picture of frayed denim will explain it better.  I finally ended up folding each strip edge into the center and sewing down the open edge to get the fraying under control.  This left me with long lengths of half inch (1.27 cm) strips of denim. 

At this point, I thought I might crochet the denim, but the strips were a little too wide for crocheting easily.  I could have made it work, but if I had started with one inch wide strips (2.54 cm) rather than two inch wide (5.08 cm) strips, it would have been easier to crochet.  The strips proved to be a bit too bulky.  By this time I was thoroughly frustrated with the project and had to take a bit of a breather before tackling it again.  The project was turning into much more work than I had expected when I started the project.  Switching plans after the project had started had not helped that situation. 

So, now I was on to Plan C.  I decided that I would weave these strips into a mat.  This is the plan that actually worked for me.  However, it was not without its pitfalls getting started.  I had all of the fabric needed for the length of the project sewn into strips.  I was planning on making a runner of roughly five or six feet long (aprox. 1.52 to 1.82 meters) and two feet (0.60 meter) wide.  The trouble was that you cannot just start with strips of that length.  As the cross strips are going to be woven in and out, it will be lifting or lowering the long strips the thickness of the cross strip.  I tried searching on the internet for some information on how much extra length I should have on each strip but I was not coming up with anything.  I finally decided that I would make each of the long strips eight feet.  I can cut some off if I hit my desired length.  If it is too short, I guess the rug will end up being a little short.  I will let you know when I get that far.  I expect that I will be cutting off some extra fabric.  That is okay, I expected to have to straighten the edge anyway. 

The first row was the most difficult and once again I had to experiment before I found out what worked.  Visualize this, the rug is going to be two feet wide.  Since those strips are half inch strips
that means that I had twenty-four eight foot long strips to try to get into a straight row and keep the rows straight the entire length of the rug.   I have to say my first attempt was pure comedy.  I ended up with a lot of snarled denim strips.  It was back to the drawing board.

I needed some way to corral all the denim.  The photo is going to be much easier to understand than my explanation here, but I am adding the explanation for details.  I went to the craft store and bought three 3/4 inch (1.91 cm) wooden dowels.  The dowels were 36 inches long (0.91 meter).   The dowels were a little long, so I had to cut them down a few inches.  When I was making the fabric strips, I had rolled them into disks.  I inserted one dowel into the center so that all twenty-four rolls of fabric were placed tightly next to each other.  One dowel in front and one in dowel was placed in back of the rolls of fabric.  On each side, I used two heavy duty rubber bands: one band between the center and the front dowel and one band from the center to the back dowel.  I doubled each band to make it a tight fit.  The bands hold the rolls of fabric tightly together and also prevent them from rolling away.  When I need to to release the roll as I weave, I just take off the rubber bands, reposition the center dowel and replace the rubber bands.  It does work.

You might think that is all you need to know, but wait, there's more!  One thing you need to know is that if you are planning on trying this you need to be wearing safety glasses at this point.  Keep that in mind as you read on.  Getting the first row started was problematic.  There may have been a way to sew that first row down with a sewing machine, but I was not able to figure it out.  I ended up with another mess of tangled fabric when I tried.  What I ended up doing was to hand sew twenty-four strip ends to the first cross piece.  After that, I would only need to sew each end of the cross piece.  My plan became to hand stitch the ends and when the rug was assembled to sew around the edges with the sewing machine. 

Hand sewing these strips was not easy.  Since each of those strips is folded in on itself and sewn, the strips are four layers of denim.  Since I am sewing two strips together, I am sewing through eight layers of denim.  Some of the light weight denim was easy enough to sew.  The heavier denim was harder to get through and I ended up using needle nose pliers to pull the needle through the fabric.  Sometimes the fabric was so thick that I had to pull really hard.  Once in a while, the thread would hang up and release with a jerk.  That was when I was glad that I was wearing eye protection.  One of those quick releases came uncomfortably close to my eye.  I was truly glad I had something between myself and that needle.  Keep you lengths of thread fairly short will help keep you safer.  I also found that the wear on the thread caused it to break frequently.  After making a few stitches, I would knot the thread on each piece.

One item I found to be very helpful were finger cots.  The rubber finger tips cushioned my fingers.  That allowed me more sewing time without discomfort.  It nubs on the bottom of the finger tips helped me keep a grip on the needle.  I have a whole set for each hand.  I don't remember where I bought them.  I generally use them when I am machine quilting, so probably at some fabric or craft store.  Although they helped with cushioning the fingers, there is no help for the overall discomfort of the hands.  Some nights my hands were throbbing.

When I started working on the cross pieces, I ran into the same problem I had encountered with the long strips.  I did not know how much extra fabric to allow for the two foot wide rug.  Besides adding length as it goes over and under the strips, some of those strips are going to have added bulk where one piece of strip joined another.  This meant that some strips were going to be longer than others.  I decided that I would make a few strips thirty inches (0.76 m) and see what happened how much was left over when they were woven.  There was a significant difference in how much extra fabric was on each strip.  Eventually I decided that I would make thirty inch strips and cut off the excess.  That seems to be working.  I hand sew both sides of the strip as I go along. 

When I sew the cross pieces in place, I make sure that they are snugged up tight against the previous piece.  As I weave the cross pieces, I also have to tighten the center weave.  I guess how much you have to tighten is a matter of taste.  I prefer to have mine in a fairly tight weave so I tighten up the fabric by pulling it down close to the cross piece next to it.  For this step, I used a crochet hook and pull the fabric down next to strip next to it.  I find that the strips do tend to loosen a little even if there are several in place.  I will continue to tighten them up as I go along and also give the entire piece a thorough check when I have finished all the weaving.  Ironically, the lighter weight denim that is easier to sew is the worst to work with when it comes to trying to tighten up the fabric.  It is soft enough that it tends to crumple when you pull on it and needs to be straightened the length of the piece each time.

This is about where I am on the project now.  I have some denim cut for the cross pieces, but I will need to cut more.  After that, I have to fold them and sew them to prevent the fraying.  I also have to sort the denim by color so that I don't get too much of one color clumped into one place.  I need another 144 strips of denim to complete the project.  At least they only need to be thirty inches long this time. 

At least the project is underway.  It is taking a lot of time.  There have been times that I just wanted to quit.  I just have to be stubborn and say I am not going to allow this project to defeat me.  However, if you are reading this article and thinking about making a denim rug, you might want to ask yourself just how badly you want this rug before you get started.

Check back next Sunday for the latest on this and on my quilting project.

Pictures from the Road - Cabin 2019

First view of the mountains.

Cloud shadows on the mountains.

I haven't posted in a month.  I can hardly believe it.  Regular readers know that it means I have been up in the mountains.  I was only there for a week, but it takes me nearly a week to get ready for the trip, and another week to get everything caught up when I get back.  It is probably not that much work, but we work so hard up there that we are completely worn out when we get back.

If you ask anyone that has a vacation home whether it is in the mountains or the beach, he or she will tell you that when you get there, mostly what you do is work.  Since we are only there occasionally, everything that is normally done over the course of days or weeks at home has to be crammed into the few days we are at the cabin.  We are surrounded by trees, so the first order of business is to pick up sticks and branches so the yard can be mowed.  My husband mows the yard, and I start the cleanup process inside.  Since this was the first trip up this year, everything needs vacuuming and dusting.  The floors need mopping and the bathroom needs cleaning.  As soon as we get there, we go into "get to work mode."

Trillium

This year, we were up there in time to see the Trillium blooming.  Many times they flower before we make the first trip up for the year.  It was a real treat to see them blooming.  The Trillium prefer moist, shady conditions.  They are mostly found in the lower part of the yard under the trees.  It used to be that most of the Trillium up there were pink.  I noticed this year that we had more white Trillium.  It looks like natural selection is making a change in the flowers up there.

Apple tree blossoms.

Every year, we get to watch Spring come in twice.  When we left home, the trees had already started to leaf out, but had not yet fully finished putting out their full size leaves.  Up in the mountains, almost all the trees were bare except for the apple trees and the Dogwoods.  The apple tree in the yard had leaves and a few blossoms when we arrived.  By the end of the week it was covered in blossoms.  The Dogwood by the porch had just the tiniest of green leaves out, and it set out its blossoms by the time we left.  The bare maples and oaks had started to set out their first shoots of green leaves.  Every day that we were there, we watched the mountains become greener.

It looks like this will be a good year for apples.  The tree was covered with blossoms.  Butterflies and moths fluttered among the blossoms.  There were so many there that it looked like the tree was alive with movement, even when there was no wind.  I had not realized before that butterflies were such big pollinators of apple trees.  Up until now, I thought that bees were the primary pollinators.

When we travel to the cabin at this time of year, we have to pack both warm and cold weather clothes.  The weather can be unpredictable.  Sometimes it snows in April.  Sometimes it is really hot. This year it was both cold and hot.  The first night we were there the low was thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit.  Some of the days it was in the fifties.  A couple of days the highs were in the upper seventies and very humid.  I think one day it hit eighty.  We almost did not bring enough warm weather clothes.  We were expecting it to be a little cooler.  Although we did use the radiator heaters on a few times, we only started the wood stove twice.  It was started the day we arrived to help heat the place up, and the next morning to break the chill.  After that, it was too warm to use it.

We are home now.  I am starting to get caught up on all the things that were left hanging while we were away.  By that I mean that I am getting caught up on all the normal things that should have been done while we were away.  I am still working on Spring cleaning.  I should stop calling it Spring cleaning.  By the time I am finished with all of it, it seems like it is time to start the Fall cleaning.  Maybe I should just call it cleaning.  By the time I get the place clean, it is time to start all over again.

Despite appearances to the contrary, I have been working on my projects.  I finally found my way out of the situation that had me bogged down on the denim project.  I will have some exciting news when I post on the blog next Sunday.  The quilt project is moving along as well.  Things are starting to come together.  Projects can be like that from time to time.  Just when I think a project can be a complete waste of time, you hit a point in the project where things take a leap forward.  Check back next Sunday afternoon for an update on those projects.

Quilt Remix. When All Else Fails, Think Something Ese.

At some time or other, every quilter has made some mistake when cutting pieces that wrecked the plan for the quilt.  It happens.  And when it does you take a few minutes to pout about it then sit down and figure out how you are going to fix it.  This is one of those times that it has happened to me.   I am having to change up my plans to account for a mistake I made cutting the leaf shapes.

This quilt has been fighting me for a while.  Regular readers may remember that when I started the quilt that the directions for cutting the background fabrics did not add up to the dimensions given in the same directions.  That was not just my opinion, I showed the directions to some of my guild members and they could not make sense of them either.  If I wanted to make this quilt I was just going to have to wing it.  I did manage to get the background squares for this applique quilt cut in a way that would work with the patterns for the applique.  The problem was that it was going to make it very tight to cut out some of the applique pieces with the fabric I have available.

I cut two sets of the applique pieces with the applique leaves facing up.  Unfortunately, I cut two sets of the applique pieces facing the wrong way.    I don't have enough fabric left to cut more pieces correctly.   Since the applique pieces are the opposite color of the background fabric my choices were limited.

I had planned for all the leaf appliques to face in the same direction; leaves facing up.  Since two sets of the applique are only going to work in the opposite direction I could make one row of leaves facing up and the next row of leaves facing down along the course of the quilt.  It looks a little funky, but at least it forms a light/dark four patch.  I could turn the other two row up, but that turns the four patch into rows of stripes.  That might be okay in some applications, but with this design, it leaves the quilt with a row of neutral on one side and a row of green on the other.  The quilt appears unbalanced.  The four patch is a better option.  However, it needs something to make it work.  The leaf shapes become a little vague when some are right side up and others are upside down.

Hopefully, my plan is to use the small half leaf shapes that were created when the leaf applique was cut to make small leaves that will fit inside the leaf outline.  I will reduce the size of the leaf by about half and then applique it in the center of each leaf outline.  It will help define it as a leaf.  Or at least I hope so.  It is the best idea I can come up with at the moment.  I may able to find some coordinating fabric in my stash that can be used to make acorns.  That would help tie in the idea of oak leaves.

The first two photos show my block options.  In the third photo you can see some of the small leaf shapes placed between the leaf outlines.  My plan is to reduce the size of some leaf shapes and applique them inside the leaf outline, which means the outline would be echoing the shape of the applique.  I have not reduced the size of any of the small leaves, so I don't have a photo of the leaf inside of the leaf outline.

My other alternative are to drive across town and spend more money on fabric (presuming that they have some of that fabric in still in stock) or fall back and try to fix this in some other manner.  I am not inclined to throw good money after bad.  I guess I will try to work with what fabric I have.  If all else fails, I can take the whole thing apart and do something else if the fabric.  Although, at this point that would be a lot of work.  If nothing else, a quilt will keep someone warm.  It might be worthwhile to focus on that instead.

Update on Current Projects

Today is just going to be a brief update on my projects.  Sometimes progress is slow, but at least something is moving along.  Each of the three current projects has something to report.

The denim rug project has the most work on it.  Readers have been following the project for a while.  I have over 350 feet of denim sewn into strips.  This is the amount of strips I need for the length of the rug.  Strips were sewn into eight foot lengths (2.44 meters).  (Scroll back through a few posts for details on how the strips were sewn for this project.) To keep the strips from becoming tangled and for ease of storage, I rolled each eight foot strip into a coil.  Pretty soon the coils were stacking up all over the place.  I found that the coils fit nicely into a large Quaker Oatmeal container.  The rest I stacked into a shoe box.   

I have started cutting 2 inch wide (5.08 cm.) for the cross pieces for the denim rug.  I am not exactly sure just how long they need to be.  The rug is only going to be slightly over two feet wide (0.61 meter).  However, the strip will need to be longer as it as woven over and under the lengthwise strands.  Once I have a number of strips cut I will weave a couple of strips to get a feel for just how long they need to be.  I estimate that I will need at least 144 cross strips to complete the project.

The Oak Leaf Quilt is coming along nicely.  The applique is complete on the first row of rectangles.  Applique is half way complete on the second row of the A block.  The applique for the B block has been pieced and all the B blocks have been marked for hand piecing.  Perhaps that does not mean a lot to non-quilters, but the project really is moving along.  I am waiting for the quilt top to be completed before I post a picture. 

The life size doll is becoming the bane of my existence.  I cannot find a dress for this doll.  I have pretty much abandoned the idea of making this doll into a dancer.  It is just too expensive.  I have started to turn my thoughts into how to change this into a Halloween doll.  Tea dyed fabric and cheesecloth are not nearly as expensive to work with as satin and laces.    

Rain Delay Project on Hold

We had a rainy week.  On top of that we ran into a problem with the van and it needed to go in for some service twice.  First we took it to the local repair shop.  They said they could put in the part, module, or whatever it was, but we would still have to take it to the dealership in order for it to be programmed.  They gave us an estimate of about $850.00.  We decided to have all the work done at the dealership.  All of this took a lot of time.  We were trying to work the trips up and back to the repair places around our schedules and around the rain.  It made hash out of my plans for the week.

I did not even make the trip out to buy the exterior sealer I needed for the doll project.  I also avoided going out in the rain to the thrift stores looking for a dress for the doll as well.  My work on the project pretty much stalled out this week.   It looks like I will have to pick it up next week.  The weather is supposed to be mild.  I hope to finish sealing the doll now that I can open the windows for some ventilation.

Other than that, I did some work on the quilt I blogged about a couple of posts back.  I will be posting a picture of it once the quilt top is finished. 

Check back next Sundat for (hopefully) progress on the life size doll.

The Life Size Doll UFO (Unfinished Object)

I am working on some fairly long term projects.  In order to keep from burning out from working on just one project for a long period of time, I am trying to work on two or three projects at the same time.  This week I have started back on an unfinished project, a life sized doll that I started last year.  Readers interested in learning how I made the doll can scroll through my blog posts from January through October of 2018.

When I started the project, I had hoped to have it ready to put in a contest at the State Fair.  My intention was to make this doll into a flamenco dancer, wearing a red dress and holding a black lace fan.  However, I was not able to finish the project in time.  Since it was my first (and most likely only) life size doll I really did not have an idea of how much time the project would take.  I also underestimated how much time we would be traveling last year.  My available time to work on the doll was much less than I had thought it would be. 

I kept working on the doll thinking I would finish it for Halloween.  I worked up until the day of Halloween, and finally got it to a stopping point of a sort.  I painted the doll to be wearing a black ballet leotard and tights.  I started sealing the paint with an exterior grade of sealer.  I was able to get one full coat on the doll before I ran out of varnish.  That is where I stopped.  I did not even put the doll outside for Halloween because it needed several coats of sealer before I would consider it waterproof enough to be outside in damp weather or dew. 

Since I did not have the doll ready for the doll contest or for Halloween, I lost interest in the project and entered into a creative burnout.  I was not really motivated to work on anything.  I plugged away at another project I wanted to finish, but the doll languished.  Now that Spring is around the corner, I can open the windows for ventilation and start adding more sealer to the doll.  I'm ready to get back to work on this project. 

What the doll needs at this point is clothing.  I want the doll to be dressed before I permanently attach her wig.  A decision needs to be made on whether to continue with the original plan of a flamenco dancer or just a Halloween prop of some kind.  I have made a couple of forays into thrift shops and even some consignment shops looking for an acceptable dress that can be altered to fit the doll.  (At this point I am not so enthused about the project that I want to make a dress from scratch.)  So far I have not found anything that worked for me.  The nicer looking dresses (of which few were red) were too expensive.  What I have been seeing at thrift shops were dresses of such poor quality fabric that I would not even consider putting them on a doll.  I guess that was why they were in a thrift shop in the first place.  I plan to make another couple of trips looking for a dress before giving up the quest. 

It looks more and more like I will be making this into the Halloween project.  My concept for Halloween will be easier and will take much less time.  That way I will have time to work on another UFO (unfinished object) before Halloween.  Check back next Sunday to see the latest of what is happening with this project.

Oak Leaf Quilt Blocks

Last week I blogged about starting on the Oak Leaf Quilt.  I mentioned the discrepancies in the directions and that I would have to experiment with the block size to see what worked for me.  I tried a couple of block sizes and finally decided that the block size would be 13.5 inches by 6 inches.  (34.9 cm by 15.24 cm).   This gave me a long narrow block that worked well with the oak leaf shapes.

The first photo shows the block background with the leaf silhouette shape on it.  The silhouette has to be appliqued to the background before the block is sewn together.  This is the A block.  The B block will be a different hue of green and neutral.  At this point, I am working on the A block and have not cut out the B block.  It might be a while before I start working on the other block.  The needle turn applique takes a while.

The second photo shows the leaf cutouts that remain once the silhouette is cut.  They will be sewn together to make a leaf shape.  One leaf shape seems slightly larger than the other.  This is due to pattern discrepancies and cutting issues.  That can be addressed by placing one half on top of the other and cutting down the larger piece to fit with the smaller leaf part.  These leaves will be appliqued to the top of the quilt at various points. 

I really haven't decided on the final size of the quilt.  If I like the look of it as the blocks are joined, it might be a full size quilt.  If I think that the A block and the B block don't look as well together as I thought, I may split it into two or three lap quilts as Christmas gifts.  Time will tell.

This is going to be another long term project.  I will be blogging about another project next week.  Check back on Sunday for an update on the life size doll project.

Oak Leaf Quilt - New Project

Dotted lines are the change to a needle turn pattern.

Today I am blogging about my newest project; an Oak Leaf quilt.  Regular readers know that I am also working on a denim rug project.  In order to keep from burning out on the project, I have started on a second project in order to have something else to work on at the same time so I won't become bored with the denim project.  A quilting project works well because I can work on it in the evenings and it will not interfere with the denim project which I work on during the day.

Needle turn pattern.

I am a terrible pack rat.  There are a lot of project that I would like to do, but don't have the time.  I save articles, books, and magazines because "one day I am going to get around to it."  Unfortunately, I have many more projects saved than I could possibly complete in this lifetime. This Oak Leaf Quilt has been in the stack for a long time.  It was in a magazine from 2005.  But, I am finally get around to it.

The quilt in the magazine was beautiful.  It was made from very nice green and gold batik fabrics.  When I went to the fabric store for fabrics, batik fabric was in short supply.  There were a few colors, but they were muddy and not in the colors I wanted.  I purchased cotton prints.  It will be different.  I guess time will tell how those choices will change the look of the quilt.

Once the outline is cut away, a half leaf shape remains.\

The quilt will have leaves that are two different colors.  One side will be green and the other a neutral.  The quilt will also have the outlines of leaves with the background showing through the center.  The photos will show what I mean by the outlines.  When you cut out the outlines, a small half leaf shape will be left over.  When the leaf shapes are sewn together they will becomes whole leaves which will be sewn on top of the quilt.  

Of course, I am making a few modifications.  First off, the quilt was a small quilt, either a baby blanket or a table topper.  I want to make a full size quilt.  The quilt instructions were for raw edge applique.  I want to make this needle turn applique, so the pattern needed to be modified.  I traced the original pattern on a piece of freezer paper.  Then I added an eighth of an inch in the appropriate spots.  I was using a ruler for the measurement, so I made a small dot at each measurement point.  Once I had it all outlined with dots, I filled in the dotted line with magic marker.  Once I cut the pattern out on the edge of the dotted line, the width for needle turning will be closer to one sixteenth of an inch.

I traced the new pattern onto another piece of freezer paper to make a needle turn pattern.  This pattern will be saved as the master copy.  I can iron the freezer paper (shiny side down on the fabric) to a fabric and stack two or three pieces of fabric underneath and cut out multiple pieces all at once.  The paper peels off the fabric easily.  The freezer paper can be used several times before it stops sticking to the fabric when ironed. 

Once I had my new pattern finished, I turned my attention to the rest of the cutting instructions.  That is where I ran into a bit of a problem.  In one place in the article it said that the finished block size was 9 by ll inches (22.86 cm by 27.94 cm).  In the cutting instructions it said to cut the blocks 6 by 11.5 inches (15.24 cm by 29.21 cm).  In a third place in the instructions it stated that when the blocks were all put together it would be a certain size by a certain size.  The stated size did not match up to either of the measurements that corresponded to the block sizes.  I spent half a morning with a calculator trying to make block sizes add up to the measurements.

In case it was just that I was too dense to figure it out, I took it to my quilter's guild and asked other guild members what was wrong.  As much more experienced quilters I though they might have some insight to the problem.  Their conclusion was the same as mine, the directions were incorrect.  They came up with two suggestions.  The article contained an email address for the quilt designer and that it might be worthwhile to write and ask her which information was correct.  The other was to make the blocks in different sizes and see which one I liked best.  I chose the latter option.  It did not seem productive to write to ask someone about something they had completed fourteen years ago.

That is about as far as I have gone with this project.  I hope by next week I will have a couple of blocks made so that I can decide how to proceed with the quilt.  Check back next Sunday for more on this project.

Denim Rug Project Part 4

Eight foot lengths of denim in coils.

I have made some progress on this project.  I'll recap briefly for new readers.  I started this project for a denim rug planning to make it using the minimal instructions from a magazine article.  Once I started the project, I realized that I really did not like the way it looked.  Mainly, the denim unraveled and had a lot of strings and lint.   It really was not the rug I wanted.  The problem was now I had a lot of strips of denim and had to figure out how to use them.  This begins a cautionary tale about changing your mind about a project when you are well into it.

Ready for sewing into strips.

My next attempt was to sew folded strips of fabric right sides together to make a long tube and turn the tube.   Forty-five minutes later, I was still trying to turn the first tube right side out.  The denim was bulky and did not want to turn easily despite the strips being two inches wide.

Denim unraveling into long threads.

I still wanted a denim rug, so I began by zig zag sewing around each strip to try to corral the threads.  Then I started sewing the strips together and tried crocheting a rug using a size G hook.  I actually liked the look and feel of the strip, but the threads were still my nemesis.  I actually did about twenty-five feet of denim in this manner, and trimmed threads as I came to them.  The next day I came back to my work and there were more threads.  It was as if the denim had decided to unravel itself more over night.  I decided that I could just not live with those threads.  I was tracking them everywhere through the house.  So, it was on to Plan C or is it Plan D?  I have lost track.

A strip of crocheted denim, which was my Plan B.

It is no use blaming the material for how it behaves.  It is what it is. (Note:  heavier denim did not ravel as much as lighter weight denim.)  So now the plan is to encase the threads.  I sewed the strips of denim into eight foot long lengths, folded them in half wrong sides together and ironed them so that I would have a center line.  Each edge was folded to the center line, and ironed.  Then the strips were folded in half and ironed again so that the raw edges were on the inside as if making binding for a quilt.  The fabric was pinned along its length and then sewn down the length of the fabric.  The raw edges are no longer in sight, so no more escaping threads.  However, this process is very time consuming.  It takes much longer than you might think to make and iron the strips.

Of course, now I have a number lengths of eight foot long strips, although not yet nearly enough for the project.  I sew them during the day when I have some time to be on the sewing machine.  In order not to have a tangled mass of strips when I am ready to use them, I rolled the lengths of fabric into coils and tied them up with some thread.  The coils needed be stabilized so that they did not come loose when they were being moved or stored.  The thread wrapped and tied holds the coils nicely.  So far, I have seventeen coils, which is about 128 feet of  fabric.  I have five more strips pinned and ready to be sewn and about four more strips that have been joined into eight foot lengths but not ironed or pinned yet.  This is not all of the fabric needed.  It is only where I am on the project right now.  More on the fabric needed next time I post on this project.

That brings me to my next subject.  This project is going to be quite time consuming. Rather than subjecting readers to multiple posts on how much material I was able to manage to sew in a week, I will be blogging on other projects as well. 

Regular readers may remember that last years long term project left me with a bad case of creative burnout.  I plan to pace myself on this project so the same thing does not happen again this year.  I will be blogging intermittently about one project or another.  I generally try to limit myself to three projects going at one time.  I am just getting ready to start a second project.  A third won't be started until after I finish sewing the strips for the denim rug project.  So for now, expect to see a post on the denim rug project about every other week.