Stained glass quilts from denim jeans

Alicia Wells, who blogs at Lucy's Quilts,  is one of those resourceful people we admire in quilting.  She has come up with a clever approach that makes it easier to construct beautiful quilts from old denim blue jeans. She says, "I make my quilts out of old jeans because I love the variations in the fabric as it fades and the pockets are great.  I have made probably about one hundred quilts using this pattern..... I think it probably could be considered an addiction but I don't think they have rehab for this addiction!" (Update on 1-14-16: the stained glass denim quilt pattern is now available at Lucy's Quilts on Etsy.)

Alicia ("Not Lucy") explains how it all started: "I blame my problem on my sister. She got me started when we made graduation quilts for our 2001 high school grads. I was hooked right away."

For her denim quilts, Alicia modified a pattern: "It originated as a Kaffe Fassett pattern pictured on the front of his Glorious Patchwork book. All of the pieces are sewn together using 1" black strips. When doing it with denim it makes it much easier since you are never sewing two pieces of denim directly together." She has used several bolts of 60" black Kona cotton for her stained glass quilts,  in addition to green, pink, orange, and other colors.

In generous quilterly fashion, Alicia has made dozens of quilts for charity:  "I have given about 40 to foster kids in our county for their high school graduation, several have been baby quilts, 2 went with the youth from our church to Mexico to give to the two families they helped build homes for, and on and on and on."

Image credits and links: Images are shown with the kind permission of Alicia Wells. About herself and her quilts, she says: "My evening job is quilting. We are empty nesters living on a little 'farm' across the sound from Seattle. I am a mother of three and grandmother of two."  For her original posts about denim/stained glass quilts, see denim quilts,  I don't think there is a patch for this and more denim/stained glass quilts.