Fake Quilting with Woven Denim

I have always loved the looks of handmade quilts. Unfortunately I know that I'll never have the patience, or time, to sit down and piece together all those teeny tiny squares. But I've learned a quilting cheat...weaving.

I saw this idea on Pinterest and I thought it would be perfect for a table runner.

I don't think this one turned out very well, I like to think of it as a good practice one.

I save all my husbands and boys old blue jeans...the ones that are too far gone to send to Goodwill but still have some good wear in that denim. Some of them are down right disgusting but still usable. I cut a bunch of them into strips, about 1 1/2 inches wide. I laid them on a long white piece of cotton measuring roughly 14"x40". I decided to leave a bit of space between the strips but next time I'll butt them right up next to one another. With the strips being a bit apart the final weaving and sewing was a little crazy.

I sewed one end of the strips securely to the white bottom cloth. Then I weaved in three or four strips at a time, pinned them securely and then zig zagged across the width of the table runner.

After I finished weaving and sewing to the end I zigzagged the opposite direction, the length of my table runner. See how my squares didn't line up? Some look big and some look small...that's because I didn't have my first strips, the strips I weaved through, close enough together.

When I first began laying out my denim strips I purposely left extra white fabric around the outside. After I was through zigzagging the denim strips I turned up that white fabric to create a border.

Overall I'm fairly pleased with it but I want to make another one where the strips are closer together before I begin weaving and I think I'll use bias tape next time for a border.

I just love sewing with denim, though I never have enough on hand for all the projects I'd like to do with them. What about you? Do you have a favorite way to reuse old blue jeans?