Highlighting the resilience and beauty of denim and leather. Reimagining waste as something modern and beautiful.
I finished this quilt on October 30th, just in time to submit it to QuiltCon. But I couldn't bring myself to share the photos. Not when I was feeling so sad about the state of our country, and so disheartened. But today I re-read my artist statement (I wrote as part of the QuiltCon submission process), and it felt oddly correct for this moment.
Artist Statement:
"This quilt is a study of contrasts — light and dark, raw and refined, organic and mass-produced. Using upcycled jeans and denim factory samples that the artist hand-dyed with natural indigo and pairing them with commercially dyed and finished leather scraps, this piece aims to reclaim discards from these two environmentally toxic industries while highlighting the resilience and beauty of these materials. Reimagining waste as something modern and beautiful."
The hope of beauty coming out of ugliness…. It made me want to share this now. And tell the story of how it came to life.
A Cosmic Waterfall
I started designing my very first quilt pattern back in 2022 — I saw what everyone else in the quilting world was doing and thought I needed to do the same. So, I made a block-based quilt pattern using new Kona cotton (yep, I bought new fabric for this). But I shifted the blocks, so a new pattern emerged, and I designed it around an ombre effect in blue of course.
And then, because I just had to involve denim in some way, I made a mini version with instructions on how to add it to your favorite denim jacket! I still love both patterns, and they are available in my shop.
But even as I was launching Cosmic Waterfall, I knew that it wasn't what I should be doing. There were so many amazing quilters making modern quilts out of new fabric, I thought they were great, but I realized I was in the quilt industry to do something different. It was launching this quilt pattern that really made me realize what I had to offer: showing people how to make modern quilts out of old, discarded materials, upcycled jeans and forgotten scraps.
A Denim Waterfall
In early 2024 I came back to Cosmic Waterfall to finally make a denim version. I made a mini version out of old jeans but simplified the pattern by removing the thin strips. With the heavier denim, I thought there would be too much bulk if I included those little strips that zigzagged around the quilt.
Leather Scraps from SCRAP
I've always loved working with leather and had collected a bunch of leather scraps from SCRAP SF where I volunteer. I used those scraps in bags, on jackets and in my quilt "A Meditation" that hung at QuiltCon 2024, and had been waiting for another project to use them in.
This summer I started experimenting with log cabins made out of denim and leather, and I realized that the thin strips of leather were fairly easy to work with.
I thought back to my Cosmic Waterfall and wondered how the leather would work as the thin strips zigzagging around the denim. And after a successful test, I started to build my new quilt.
A Study on Wash Formulas and Dye
I started with the blues and decided to shift the color layout. Rather than having the background and zigzag shift from light to dark, like the original design, I kept the zigzag with shades of dark values so the shape would be stronger, and the back would blend behind it.
To expand the range of blue values, I pulled in some off-white denim panels that I'd dyed in an indigo sucrose vat — they were the only natural indigo since the commercially made jeans were all dyed with synthetic indigo. After the blues were set, I carefully planned all the strips of leather, using clips instead of pins. Because leather...
I then started making all 42 little blocks, each with a strip of leather between two pieces of denim. I had a variety of weights of leather, and for the lightest weights I used a light fusible interfacing on the back to keep the piece from stretching and getting wonky. I'm a big fan of imperfections, but I wanted these lines to be straight for the overall look of the piece.
As I usually do, all seams were pressed open, and I used my iron carefully on the back with a piece of cotton cloth to protect the leather from melting.
Once the blocks were sewn together, I added thicker strips of leather around the outside to frame the quilt.
I sandwiched the quilt top with batting (fiber content unknown, since it had been bought secondhand) and a backing made of pieced chambray bought at a de-stash sale. I wanted to keep the quilting simple so it wouldn't distract from the texture of the denim and leather, so I used my Hera marker to make straight lines that shadowed the zigzags and diamonds and used a range of blue Aurifil 40wt threads to straight stitch the lines on my Bernina 770.
I simply turned the leather border around to the back, like a built-in binding, and hand-stitched it in place to create a clean edge, and then my quilt was done!
I hope you have found some inspiration or light in this quilt, and I hope you keep creating and bringing beautiful things into this world, because we need it now more than ever!
And if you want to make your own denim quilt, check out the Denim Duo quilt pattern which will help you make your own modern creation!
