Earth Day Quilt Challenge

With my New Orleans Quilt all done, and Earth Day right around the corner, I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to dive into some of the "recycled" fabric that I've been collecting in the last few years.  A quilt made out of these fabrics is easier on our planet, and easy on the wallet too.  With "up-cycling" being so popular now, I hope you will join me in making something in the next few weeks out of used fabric.

Here's a few of my ideas.

With 2 (rapidly) growing boys/men, I have no shortage of blue jeans in our house.  I often buy them used to begin with, and after they get worn by both of my boys (who are just 23 months apart), there is seldom a decent pair of jeans left over to give back to charity.  Not only that, but we passed a big milestone in our house this week-end.  My oldest son is now in mens' size jeans :-O.  I swear it was just yesterday that I was buying his first pair of baby jeans.  The sheer amount of denim fabric has also increased as they have grown!  So over the week-end, I cut into a pile of old jeans and have started making squares to use.  I plan on making a simple quilt with flannel sashing, and jean squares so as not to have any thick denim seams.

I also plan to dive into this pile of silk mens' ties that I bought recently for 50 cents per tie.  I'm thinking these may be a perfect excuse to make a Mariner's Compass mini quilt.  Now I just need to find a pattern...

I fell in love with quilts made from vintage sheet as soon as I saw my first one in blog-land, and have been eager to get a big quilt made from these.  I may use a quilt pattern that I already own, such as Maple Island's "BQ" or Swirly Girl's "Focus Pocus" .  Maybe I'll make something new.  One thing that's really stalled me on these is that the sheets I have are mostly floral, and with my almost entirely male household, they just don't "fit in" well.  They'll make a great gift though.

I need to find more sheets like these...

I'd love to hear comments about up-cycled projects that you've done, or will be doing!  Maybe I'll even try to figure out how to do a link-up or start a Flickr group.  If you're interested in sharing this way, let me know. (If you know how to do it, let me know too LOL).