Faux cathedral windows from denim jeans

Three weeks ago we wrote our first post about Jeans Therapy (quilts from recycled denim). Today we are finishing the series with a wonderful circle/square quilt by Lori Poyer.  This is a clever quilt-as-you-go technique that is perfect for turning old jeans into quilts! The circle/square design is also called circular patchwork, folded cottage windows, mock cathedral windows and cheater cathedral windows*.  The fun lies in the selection and arrangement of fabrics for the 'windows'. 

Denim circle/square quilt by Lori Poyer at Poyer's Page

Lori Poyer achieved just the right balance of light and dark fabrics, and we love the bright red accents which include bandannas, plaids and stripes (click on the photos to see the detail). Lori says: "This was a quilt that I created from a woman’s old jeans (and believe me it took a whole lotta jeans!) and pieces of shirts from her, her husband and her baby daughter. It fit a queen/king size bed. It was a lot of work, but I had fun doing it." She incorporated jeans pockets, embroidered bits and other embellishments in the quilt:

To make a faux cathedral windows quilt you first cut circles out of the denim and mark out a square within each circle. When you stitch two pieces together on the marked lines, the rounded edges of the circles become flaps. Insert a scrap of fabric in the 'window' (batting is optional), fold the flaps over the scraps, and stitch down the raw edges of the flaps, stitching through all the layers. In a post by Doreen Baros at equilters you can see a circle jeans quilt in progress (below). See the squares that are marked within the circles, and the way the pieces are sewn right sides together ?

To mark out the circles you can use a coffee can lid as Doreen Baros has done or a circle template as in the tutorial at Puppets and Props or an Olfa cutter as in the tutorial at A Passionate Quilter.  To see two more denim quilts made with faux windows, check out the denim-and-fleece quilt at Burdastyle and the Care Bears denim quilt at Heritage Scraps.  Finally, here is a how-to video by Penny Halgren (9 min) who uses a quarter-circle template:

Image credits:  The images of Lori Poyer's quilt are shown with her generous permission. In addition to quilting, Lori provides web design services; for more information visit Poyer's page.
*In mock cathedral windows and cheater cathedral windows, two fabric circles are sewn right sides together and then turned right-side-out in order to avoid raw edges. In denim cathedral windows the edges are left raw, then stitched down with a zig zag stitch or straight stitch.