(What do you do with your) Old Blue Jeans

Old Blue Jeans

1. This is Evelyn. She loves to collect all kinds of things: rocks, buttons, and snail shells.
2. Evelyn’s grandpa is a collector too.  He collects all kinds of things: baseball cards, coins, and old blue jeans.
3. Evelyn’s grandma is not a collector.  She throws out all kinds of things because she likes her home to be neat and tidy.
4. Evelyn’s grandpa has been saving his outgrown and worn out blue jeans for a long long time.  In the storage room in the back of their home, Grandpa has bags, boxes, and tin trash cans full of his old jeans.
5. Evelyn’s grandma is not happy about that.  Not even a little. “Do something with these old jeans, or get rid of them!”  (Grandma has made this same demand at least one hundred times.)
6. Her grandpa always answers, “I’m planning to make something out of them.”

And Grandma always asks, “When?”

“When I have time.”  

7. Evelyn’s grandpa has never the had time, so the pile of blue jeans has grown, and grown, and grown.
8. “Why do you have to keep old things?” Grandma asks.
9. Grandpa just smiles with a sparkle in his eye and replies, “because I love you.”
10. Grandma smiles, gives Grandpa a kiss, and says, “I love you too.”
11. Then one day Grandpa retired and had all kinds of time on his hands.  He stopped at the fabric store and hunted for a pattern.
12. When Grandpa arrived back home Evelyn, was waiting for him.  “What are you making, Grandpa?” she asked. “You’ll see,” Grandpa replied.
13. He cut some of his old jeans into pieces.
14. Using the pattern he cut the pieces to the right size and shape.
15. Then he sat down at the old Singer sewing machine and began to sew the pieces together.
16. At first he made a few mistakes, but Grandpa didn’t give up.
17. He sewed and he sewed until he had what looked like....
18. ...an oddly shaped blue jean bag.
19. “What’s that crazy thing?!” Evelyn asked.  

Grandpa just said, “You’ll see.”  

20. Grandpa and Evelyn went back to the store and bought some soft fluffy stuffing, two big brown buttons, and one smaller black button.  
21. “What are those for?” asked Evelyn.

“You’ll see,” Grandpa said.  “Come with me.”

22. Evelyn watched while Grandpa stuffed the soft fluffy stuffing into the back of the funny bag.  
23. Little by little the bag began to look like…
24. ...a Teddy Bear!
25. Grandpa stitched up the back of the bear, and then he sewed on two brown eyes and a black, bear nose.
26. “It’s for you, Evelyn,” Grandpa said.  
27. After some of Grandma’s freshly baked cookies, a glass of milk, and a story, Evelyn went home with her mother.
28. “Well,” said Grandma, “that was a nice looking bear, but there are still piles and piles of blue jeans in our back room.”
29. So Grandpa went back to work, and it wasn’t long before the sewing room was full of bears,

then the living room,

and then the hall.

30. Grandma threw up her hands and exclaimed, “What, in Heaven’s name, are we going to do with all of these bears!”
31. [A final picture shows Grandma and Grandpa selling blue jean bears and freshly baked cookies at a local crafters fair.  Evelyn has a lemonade stand set next to theirs.]