One of my quilting mentors, Dorothy Heideman Nelson, has encouraged me for a couple of years to enter in the Textiles Open Class show at the Nebraska State Fair in addition to the Quilt Show and I finally had a project in 2018 I wanted to make and enter. One of the challenges is that the entry cannot be eligible for the Quilt Division.
When planning a denim upcycle night for my 4-H club, I found a post on Pinterest that was a denim quilt I wanted to make. Simultaneously, I had been looking for projects to use the feedsacks chicken feed comes it. It is a woven plastic, much like a lightweight tarp. Thus, the upcycled denim picnic blanket was born. By sandwiching two sturdy layers without the batting in the middle, it would not be a quilt by definition and only eligible for the Textiles Division.
As the blogger describes, I cut six- and two-inch strips of various shades of denim and used a 60° angle ruler to join pieces to make strips. I happened to have one pair of red denim capris that had an unfortunate incident with a purple crayon in the laundry to add some accent to the blues.
The top was sized for four chicken feed sacks cut open and stitched together. For added interest, I rounded the corners. The binding is a raw edge denim strip.
It earned a fourth place ribbon at the Nebraska State Fair in the Open Class Textiles Division in an upcycling class. It took me a bit to find it in the show because it was hung with the feedbacks facing the viewer and the denim "quilt" hiding in the cabinet. :)
