Friday, September 10, 2010

I Lost 21 Pounds in One Day!

For years I've been saving old blue jeans with the idea that I would one day use them to make darling quilts for my boys. Whenever Robert or any of the boys wore out a pair of jeans, they got stacked on the shelf in a closet. Wednesday I looked at the shelf and asked myself an important question: Am I really going to take the time to cut up each of these pairs of jeans into useable squares that can then be used to make a quilt?

The answer was a resounding NO!

The decision to part ways with the stacks of jeans (a 21 pound stack of jeans, no less) was quite freeing. I no longer had a dreaded project hanging over my head and I was about to get a whole closet shelf back. It felt great.

However, I didn't want to throw the jeans in the garbage. It seemed like such a waste to relegate the stack to a landfill. And I couldn't give them to Goodwill. As if someone would actually pay money for jeans with holes in the knees! I decided to offer my stack to my Facebook friends, but shockingly, there were no takers. (Well, I did have one friend from Wyoming express interest).

Finally I posted them for free on Craigslist and I found a taker.

I was surprised that I didn't have more interest in my 21 pound pile of jeans. After all, there are a plethora of crafts one could make from old jeans. The word du jour is "repurposing." Or, if you prefer, "upclycling."

A quick google search turned up online instructions for using old jeans to make not just quilts, but wallets, purses, a kindle case cover, a notebook cover, a lunch sack, baby bibs, an apron, Christmas stockings, a vest (or at least that is what she's calling it), and this amazing, but very heavy looking dress.

I was impressed, however, with all the footwear you could make repurposing old jeans.

These slippers seemed pretty comfy, but for the life of me I could not find directions to make them. (Not that I'd have any old jeans for the project anyway...)







Not sure what to say about these slippers.




















For the baby in your life, these cute little booties.








For sale on Etsy, these cute mary janes.











I could get excited about these, maybe. But again, I'm all out of old jeans. 21 pounds lighter!!!





4 comments:

Natalie said...

Congratulations! That's quite a few pounds. We have a RS clothing exchange tomorrow and we just dropped off two boxes and a bag of stuff (and 3 furniture photos). I didn't weigh it, or we could compare notes. I saved old jeans for awhile too, thinking I would turn them into shorts. So often there's nothing wrong with them other than the giant knee-holes. But I gave up on that. I hear you.

a said...

I'll take any quilt books you have that you were going to use with the jeans!!!
a

Betty Grace said...

My favorite part of this is that you weighed them.

Afton said...

I know! I think my nerd status has been solidified.