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.

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.

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.

Denim Rug Project Part 3

Nine feet of fabric yielded 16 inches of stitching.

The transition from light to medium fabrics.

There is an old adage that states, "Don't change horses in mid-stream."  It is not always a great idea to make some major change to a project once you get underway.  However, this time I found it necessary, or at least worthwhile to make a big change in the project once I had it started.   Last blog post I wrote about I decided that I really did not like the look of the denim rug that I wanted to make.  It looked nice in the picture, but up close it looked shabby.  It was really not the look I wanted in my room.  So, with lots of lengths of two inch wide (5.08 cm.) denim strips cut, I changed my mind about what I wanted to do with them.  Sometimes it is worthwhile to have a Plan B, and even a Plan C.  I finally hit upon the plan that would give me a look that I liked.  It was actually hard to choose.  There are a number of ways to make a denim rug. 

The transition from medium to darker fabrics.

I have already learned a lot about working with denim.  A couple of things I would like to pass on immediately because not one article I read on denim projects mentioned it.  Lint is a big problem.  It clogged up my sewing machine.  I have quilted for years and I have never had my machine so clogged with lint.  If you are using a sewing machine in your project (more on the machine sewing in the next paragraph) be prepared to clean it out much more frequently than normal.  I was also breathing in abnormal amounts of lint.  It was in my nose and I was feeling stuffy.  With 20-20 hindsight, it might have been advisable to wear a dust mask.

When you cut up denim, it starts to unravel.  Little bits of thread were falling off all over the place.  My floor was covered with thread.  I had to sweep up regularly to keep from tracking it all through the house.  The unraveling threads were enough of a problem that they had to be addressed one way or another.  For the sake of time, I decided to zig-zag stitch around each piece.  My other option was to fold the pieces in half length wise and turn under the open edges and stitch them in place.  I did not choose that option because it would have created a lot of bulk on one side of each tube and more bulk in joining the tubes together. 

Now that the advice part is out of the way, let me tell you about my project.  I have made a lot of progress, but you can hardly tell it.  The entire week I have been zig-zag stitching around pieces of denim.  I think I have fourteen pairs of jeans cut up into two inch (5.08 cm.) strips.  I would sew around one and drop it into a box.  Then the next.  I ended up with a pyramid of fabric about twelve inches by fifteen inches at the base (30.48 x 38.1 cm) and  twenty inches high (50.8 cm).  It seemed an intimidatingly large amount of fabric strips. 

To make it seem like the week had not been a total waste of time, I started joining the strips of fabric together.  Another decision had to be made at this point on joining the pieces of fabric.  I could join the fabric as if I were piecing blocks on a quilt, with edges lined up evenly.  Or, I could piece the fabric as if I were making a bias binding, so that the edges of the join run diagonally across the fabric.  There are advantages and disadvantages to both.  A straight join is going to add more bulk in one area, which will make some stitches difficult, but it is quicker than making the diagonal join.  The diagonal join means that there is less bulk in one area of the stitch, but it wastes a considerable amount of fabric.  A diagonal join is made by laying one strip across another strip at right angles.  Then the seam is sew from the lower edge of the top fabric up to the opposite corner at the top.  The excess triangle of fabric is then cut away.  I went with the straight join.  I would rather deal with an occasional difficult stitch than lose the fabric.

The combination of the fabrics was another decision.  There are many variations in the colors of denim.  I had asked friends to donate old, blue denim jeans for the project in order to keep the cost of the project down.  I received jeans in many shades of blue.  Some were very light, some very dark, and most of them middle values of blue.   I only had a few dark indigo ones.  I decided to attach the fabric in strips going from light to dark and then starting the sequence over again.  However, because the I have so few of the dark indigo, the indigo will be used in much shorter pieces.  They will be accent points.

I started attaching the fabric in roughly three foot lengths of each color (0.91 meter) .  I say roughly because the fabrics are cut in all different lengths to gain the most fabric from a pair of jeans.  If I started to cut up the fabrics so that each piece was exactly a yard long I would end up with a bunch of little joins eventually.  Close enough is good enough in this case.  Besides, I like to add a bit of randomness to my projects.  You never know how the bits of fabric are going to line up. 

For the record, there is a better way to make strips of fabric than the one I used.  If I had started out with this method it would have been easier.  However, since I changed my mind on how to make the rug, it was not an option for me.  You start at one end on a panel of the leg and start cutting, making turns as you reach each corner, and continuing to cut around the entire panel so that each leg panel is one continuous length of fabric.  (The back panels would be slightly shorter lengths since you have to work around the pockets.)  You would end up with four long lengths of fabric from each pair of pants.  That will save a considerable amount of time and reduce the number of joins needed to make the rug.  However, you will still have to deal with the issue of unraveling threads.  And, those long lengths of fabric are going to tangle into big knots unless you roll them up into balls or onto some type of tube.

After putting about nine feet of fabric together I started testing how well it was going to crochet.  I folded the fabric in half as I crocheted so that the joins of the fabric would be on the inside.  I did not feel the need to sew the outer edges together.  I tried it with a size G hook to get a feel for what the rug might look like.  It is too early in the process to start the crocheting, but I needed the energy boost of seeing what the project might look like.  The size G hook crocheted a length of stitching about sixteen inches (40.64 cm) long from nine feet of fabric (90.91 meter).  This is just an experiment.  The stitches are a little tight.  I need to remember to loosen up.  However, this strand has a very hefty feel to it.  It feels like a rug.  The photos shown here are all made with a G hook.

At this point I have not yet decided on how to proceed with the rug.  I also want to try a size T hook.  The stitches would be larger and the amount of fabric needed to make the rug could go up.  Since I have not tried it yet I would have to guess, but a nine foot length of fabric might only crochet up to a ten inch strand with the T hook.  The rug might not feel as thick since the stitches might flatten out somewhat.  I will have to experiment.  I will let you know.

This is about as far as I have gone on this project so far.  My plan for this week will be to join as many strips together as I can.  I may get a little bit of the crocheting done if I do it in the evenings while watching television.

I will be blogging on another subject next Sunday.  I will be blogging again about the denim rug in two weeks.  Check back for the latest updates.

The Denim Project

My pile of denim strips.

I started working on my denim project, or projects as the case might be.  Some time ago, I saw a rug made out of denim strips in a magazine.  I wanted a small runner to put on the side of my bed.  It is cold stepping out of the bed onto the floor in the winter.  I thought that this might be a small rug project that I could undertake. 

Initially I had started with the idea of making a larger rug like the one I had seen in a magazine.  But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to be a lot of work.  Trying to sew a large rug is going to be heavy.  Since it was only a picture of the finished project, I really have no way of knowing how that particular rug was put together.  I am guessing that it is made in strips that are then attached to each other.  

It may be that a heavy duty industrial sewing machine is needed for this project.  I am hoping that my home sewing machine will be up to it.  My main concern is that a heavy rug would create too much drag and the fabric will not move well through the feed dogs.  My sewing machine is old, but still working well.  I expect it will work well with heavier needles used for denim projects.   Perhaps a walking foot is in order here as well.  As usual, this is one of my experiments.  I will find out what works and what does not. 

Before I could begin the rug, I had to have a lot of scrap denim.  I put out a call to friends for old denim.  I received several pairs of jeans.  I also had some of my own old jeans to add to the pile.  While it is nowhere near the amount of denim needed for the larger project, it is a good start.  I have been cutting them up for the last week.  I did not specify the color of denim, other that to say that I wanted blue denim.  I did not want to add black or other colors into the mix.  I received every shade of blue; from blues so pale that they were almost white to deepest indigo.  Most of the blues fell in the range of light stone wash to medium stone wash.  Although it might be nicer to stick to one color of denim, I am going ahead with using all colors. 

This week, I have been working on cutting the denim pants into two inch strips the length of the pants.  Some strips are longer than others due to the curves and seams in the pants.  At this point I have not decided whether to further cut the strips into a standard length or just leave them random lengths.  I am thinking random lengths would be better because I don't want all the ends of the pieces matching up.

Next step is to overcome the nay sayers.  I told the women at my sit and sew about my project and one woman told me that she had a friend who made a denim rug and said she would never do it again.  I mentally fended that one off by saying to myself that this sounds like every project I have ever undertaken.  Then my husband inquired about my denim project.  After I explained that it was a rug, he said, "If you want a rug why don't you go out and buy one?"  His logic was harder to refute.  I started thinking, "Do I really want to do this project?"  What might I do with all this denim instead?"  

Anyway, at this point, I have a grocery bag full of denim strips.  I plan to start working with those and see where it takes me.   If it is too onerous I might change up the way I made the rug.  Or if making a rug proves too difficult, the strips may end up as a bed spread, totes, or some other project.  But, I am going to give the rug a shot first.  At worst, I can always pull out a seam ripper and take it apart if I need to retrieve the strips.

Check back next week on Sunday to see what progress has been made on this project.