Recycled Bubble Quilt

For those of you who have been following me, you know that every year my work hosts a big bash for Earth Day. We have green vendors come, we do an art auction of items made from recyclables, and we do a style show with outfits made from recycled materials, as well.

It is always a fun event, and I love participating.

Last year I made several paintings using magazine pages.

This year I decided to push myself. My mom sent me the link to something I'd never seen before, a bubble quilt (also known as a biscuit quilt). The tutorial was fantastic, so I thought I'd give it a try.

The key was, though, that I had to find a way to make it out of recycled materials and still have people want to curl up under it.

My husband and sister had both recently junked some jeans that I was saving (woot woot for losing weight!) so I thought I could start with those. My husband and I used to work at the same place, and so we both had old uniform shirts tucked away in a drawer (painting shirts mostly...wait until my next post!).

The combination of green work shirt and multicolored denim hit me perfectly and I decided to go with it.

If you're looking for detailed instructions, check out this pattern from Awaiting Ada. She has a couple of different versions and does a fantastic job explaining step by step how to put this sucker together.

First thing was to cut out the "bubble" pieces for the quilt top.

I cut around the seams and grabbed all the useful denim I could. Then I grabbed my trust rotary tool and a self-healing mat and started cutting them down into 6"x 6" squares. This took me about 5 eight hour days....did I fail to mention that even though this was a recycled quilt and only cost me about $30, it was extremely labor intensive?

Once all of the top pieces were cut, I had to cut the backing pieces for the quilt top (to make each piece a "bubble." Don't worry about picking a good fabric for these. They will not be seen on the actual quilt. I had several work shirts left over, so that's what I used. These were cut 4.5" x 4.5". Then they needed a small slit down the middle for stuffing later (you'll see). My exacto knife made quick work of those slits.

Next came the pinning. This took me about 2 days to finish. One big piece is pinned to one small piece, wrong sides facing. First you pin the corners (which will have a tendency to roll inward, as in the pic below. This is NOT a big deal!) then you pin a pleat in the middle of each side.Just let them pleat wherever they want to - it is not important that the pleats be even or anything, just that the top piece lays flat against the bottom piece.

Then run a seam around the edge of each piece. It doesn't have to be pretty, just try to get it as close to the edge as possible. That is one mistake I made. Here, I ran the seam with the fabric at the edge of the foot.

Next you're going to start stringing them together in a line. My blanket was 11 squares by 15. So, I sewed the 11 squares together to make each strip. 

Then start sewing the strips together.

Sorry, but I didn't take and photos of this next part. After you have the whole quilt top finished, flip it over and start stuffing. Grab about a handful of poly-fill and stuff each bubble through the slit you cut into each bubble back. You do not want to over stuff them because it will make them harder to sew later.

Next is the fun part. You're going to have to hand sew each slit closed. I used yarn and a large needle because the wide strokes made it go faster. Even with that, it took me about two days (and eventually an extra pair of hands) to knock it out.

Finally! Sew your backing fabric on, with right sides facing. Leave a several inch hole in the middle of one side and flip the blanket inside out. Then hand sew the opening shut.

AAAAAAND you're done. So there you have it, my first bubble quilt. All said and done, I think the green and blue were too close together in color to clearly show the chevron pattern, but I was still pretty happy with the outcome.