Forever in Blue Jeans

About a week ago - more or less - I saw an orphan that was being placed for adoption.  This is not an orphan child but rather an orphan project.  You see, there has been a movement to "adopt out" the quilty orphan projects that you are just "done with."   I think I put in for two orphans and got emails offering both to me.
Then I received the first box from Barb at Mountain Quiltworks.  She wrote in her post that " There are probably about 150 squares here. "  Ha!  I counted about  three hundred and fifteen. So I will probably be making more than one project.  These squares are 6" pieces of denim and twill.  So I started out making two rows of twelve squares.   A friend was visiting and said " That looks kind of plain - why don't you embellish it?"   I said, "It needs to be comfortable not fancy."  Then we talked a bit and decided that I should use my embroidery machine for more than a paperweight.  Except the squares don't fit in the smallest hoop.  Yes, it is a 4"by4" hoop, but that is embroidery area not actual size of the hoop.  I finally decided that I could hoop tearaway stabilizer and use gluestick to hold the squares to it. That works great!  I folded both stabilizer and fabric in fourths to make a placement line.  Several designs that I own but have never sewed out were put on a usb drive and put into use.

Some of them are single-run quilting designs and were "weak" looking.  I realized that I could sew it twice - and just nudge the placement control one tick to the right for a double thickness line.

It sews right next to the first sewing line and looks much more substantial.  If I were using it to quilt a piece, I would never do this.

Here are a bit of the sewn together rows. Do you see Sam fishing up there?  I am trying to randomly place the embroidered blocks so that it looks casual and fun.

Here are a couple of my favorite embroidered pieces.

I could not get a decent photo...but to the right of the sunflower is a music design.

I had decided to make this 12 by 12 blocks which will be a pretty big lap quilt.  I hope it is snug and comfy.  I am only adding fabric to the back as the denim will be heavy enough by itself.

At this point I have four rows sewn and a fifth row sewn into "twosies."  Once the rows are complete my plan is to just sew them onto the backing in a quilt-as-you-go manner and then finish the edges with binding or maybe just use extra backing as binding like my grandmother used to do.

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