I have been on a bit of an upcycling kick lately. I'd really prefer not to throw anything away if it still can be used in some way. That is especially true of clothes. I will donate clothes that are in good condition, but some of the kids' clothes are too worn by the time they are done with them to give away, and, of course, some clothes have sentimental value. I'd also rather keep the things that I made for the kids and make something else with them than donate them. So, I stash them in a drawer or a bin in my sewing room until I can think of something to do with them.
Last year I made this quilt and used up a good portion of my stash of kids' t-shirts. I still had a lot of pants that I didn't know what to do with though. Then when we were visiting my parents in California this past winter I took this picture of the kids:
I put it on the lock screen on my phone and, after looking at it daily for a couple months, I got the idea to make a quilt using the colors in the photo. I started looking at my fabric stash to see what I had that would work, but then I realized that the kids' old pants actually had most of the colors in the photo: Sand, blue, green, grey, brown. So I decided this quilt would be a perfect upcycling project for all those old kids' pants that I didn't know what to do with.
Because some of the pants I wanted to upcycle were toddler sized, I knew I wouldn't be able to get very large cuts out of them. I decided to cut pieces 3.5" x 6.5" and pair them together to make 6" finished blocks. I threw in some bottom-weight fabric scraps I had lying around as well to fill out some of the colors.
Once I cut up all the pants I sewed them together in pairs that I felt went together - for example, sand would be next to water or plants, so I would sew the sand colors to either blue or green and I sewed darker blues to lighter blues. Once I had all my blocks sewn I played around with the arrangement a bit. At first I thought I wanted a more literal representation of the coastline, but I wasn't happy with how it looked:
So I eventually settled on a more random arrangement:
I used Kaufman Shetland Flannel in Solid Denim for the back and quilted it in a stair step pattern following the lines of the blocks.
I bound the edges with an army green twill that I think I got from the remnant bin at Jo-Ann's.
The quilt is 10 squares on a side, so it finishes at 60" square. I love all the different textures that the pants add and the soft flannel on the back. I'm sure I will enjoy snuggling under it when the weather gets cool again. For now, though, I just like to run my hand over it and see the all fabrics memories.