TGIFF - Introducing Denim Days!

It's time for Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday! If this is your first time here at Devoted Quilter, welcome! I can't wait to see what you've finished this week :)

I'm a bit of a packrat, and I've had a closet full of old jeans for years. I didn't know what I was going to use them for, but I certainly wasn't about to throw them out - all that denim is like free fabric, after all! To be honest, part of why I wasn't using the jeans was the simple fact that I didn't want to deconstruct them into usable pieces. I made a denim quilt for my brother back in 2000 and taking all those jeans apart was a real pain in the behind hand. Cutting denim with scissors is hard work!

Then, sometime before Christmas, Natalia Bonner of Piece N Quilt, posted a picture on Instagram of a denim quilt she made years ago, and she said the denim for it was all torn. I checked out the tutorial on her blog and was excited to see that she deconstructed all the jeans for her quilt by tearing them, just like fabric stores used to tear the fabric you bought. I got out a pair of my old jeans and gave it a try and it worked! Not only that, but ripping denim is strangely therapeutic :)

I was in between projects in early January and waiting for fabric to come in the mail, so I started playing with some of that denim I've been hoarding. The result is a whole series of projects, which I'll be sharing every Friday in February. I'm calling it Denim Days.

Each Friday this month I'll share a project or two. Some will be my own designs and I'll include tutorials, while others will be projects I've made using someone else's tutorial. All of them will help you use up any old jeans you have lying around. If you don't have old jeans lying around, thrift stores are a great source, or ask friends (especially friends who have kids) to donate their old jeans to a good cause -your awesome sewing projects!

Without further ado, here are my projects for today. The first one is a reversible headband I made using this tutorial by Vanessa of Crafty Gemini Creates.

Vanessa uses quilting cotton for both sides of her headband, but I was already in "What else can I make out of denim?" mode when I decided to make mine, so I decided to try using denim for one side. The tutorial recommends Shape Flex, which I didn't have, but I did have some fusible interfacing lying around, so I used that on the quilting cotton. I didn't bother to use any on the denim side because I figured it would be stiff enough without it, and I was right. It's perfect! Using the denim did make it a little harder to turn the headband right side out, but it was still doable. The whole project only took about 20 minutes, including making the template, and now when my hair is getting on my nerves, I can get it out of my face. Yippee! As a bonus, denim goes with pretty much everything.

When I was making the Travel Tic Tac Toe Games that I gave as Christmas gifts, I was already thinking that it would be fun to make a couple using denim for the 9 patch block for the game board, so these were the first things I made after tearing apart some of those old jeans. I really love how they turned out!

 

Instead of stitching in the ditch around the 9 patch block, I used red thread and a tight zig zag stitch to really emphasize the divisions between the squares. Other than that, I followed the instructions in my tutorial completely.

I hope you'll come back every Friday this month to see what else I'll be sharing for Denim Days! I'm really excited about the projects :) Also, my Just the Basics mystery quilt-a-long will begin in March, so be sure to follow me if you're interested in that! You can find the links for following by Bloglovin, email, Feedly and Instagram in my sidebar.

Now it's your turn! Link up to show off your finishes, then go visit a few of the other links and don't forget to leave comments. It's only a party if we interact with each other, right?

An InLinkz Link-up

Compassion Bloggers in Ecuador

Are you familiar with Compassion International? They are a child-sponsorship organization whose motto states they are "releasing children from poverty in Jesus' name."

Right now there is a team of Compassion bloggers in Ecuador, meeting sponsored children and seeing firsthand the amazing work being done in their lives.  They're blogging about their experiences each day and you can read those posts here, or just click on the image. Some of the stories are really beautiful, this one especially!

While you're reading, would you consider sponsoring a child? For only $38 a month, you can help a child move beyond their poverty and reach for dreams that wouldn't otherwise be possible.

A Good Name

Devotion for the Week...

My father-in-law is a pastor and for a while they lived and pastored here in the same small town where Paul and I now live. They moved away about a year before we arrived, though, so we didn't live here at the same time. When we first got here, we were often amused by how we were introduced because almost every introduction was the same, "This is Pastor Parsons' son and daughter-in-law."

It happened in the church, of course, since Pastor Parsons had been their pastor only a year ago, but it also happened all around town. Paul's father was well known, and well liked, so many people connected us to him.

The Bible says, "A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold" (Proverbs 22:1). A good name simply means a good reputation, being known for good things rather than being known for being rude or impatient or mean. A good name is not necessarily earned by one great act of kindness, but rather over many, many little interactions with the people in our communities.

Because I live in a small town, I know most of the store cashiers by name, and they know me. I chat with the ladies at the post office when I go in to check my mail, and once even opened a package before leaving so that one of them could see my Round Trip Quilt when it came home to me. It is obvious that my interactions around town affect how people see me. That may not seem to be the case for you, especially if you live in a big city. But even though you may see a different cashier every time you go to the store, there are other people with whom you have those small, daily interactions that allow them to form an opinion of your character.

Of course, as believers, it's not only our own names that are affected by how we treat the people we interact with. While talking about how God works through believers to reconcile other people to Him, Paul wrote, "We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us" (2 Corinthians 5:20).  An ambassador is an official representative of his or her home country to another country and, as such, they present their entire country to people who may never meet another person from that home country. For example, if the Canadian ambassador to France were to start acting rude and arrogant, he or she would create a poor impression among the French, not only of his or her own character, but also of all Canadians.

So, as Christ's ambassadors, we represent Christ. Those actions that hurt our name in our community also hurt His name. Those things that build up our good name, also build His good name.

In order to represent Christ properly, we must live as Christ would live. Fortunately, in the book of Micah, we are given a simple formula for living God's way. "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8).

To act justly - to do what is right.

To love mercy - to show love and kindness, even at times when it isn't deserved.

To walk humbly with your God - First up, to walk with God, having an ongoing relationship with Him, and then also to remember that we are not perfect, that we often need God's mercy, and that He willingly gives it to us because of our faith in Jesus.

If our lives are characterized by those three things, then we will earn a good name in the community, and be good ambassadors for the One we represent.