Funky.Junky.Furniture.Finds: My First Rag Quilt

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great holiday and took time to rest and relax before ringing in the 2014.

Today I am sharing my rag quilt that I made in December. I read a bunch of online tutorials and jumped right in!

Up close

Front

Back

First order of business was to pick out colors and a pattern for the rag quilt. I chose four colors and decided on a solid back with a small center square of color. I cut my fabric into 9"x9" squares and played around with them until I found a pattern I liked.

After I decided upon my my pattern I sandwiched the front square, batting, and back square together like a sandwich. Then I stitched them together by sewing a large X through the middle.

I'm glad I had some many great tutorials to review for this project. I learned that the batting needs to be 1" smaller than the square to allow room for to to fray the ends. My math and cutting skills aren't great so my batting was closer to 1.5 - 2" smaller. The great thing about rag quilts are they don't have to be accurate (yay). The fraying ends allow for not so straight lines or not so even squares. It's a great first sewing project.

Once I had all my sandwiches I lined the quilt back up on the floor and pinned it together. I sewed them in strips (starting at the bottom so my pattern would stay in tact). Once I had all my rows sewed together I began attaching each row together. It was important to note that when sewing the squares together you must leave yourself at least an inch allowance to cut the ends for fraying. I tried to sew as close as I could to my batting to allow plenty of room for cutting the ends.

Once my quilt was all attached I cut into the squares every 1/2" or so to create the frayed look. Once I went around the entire quilt I threw it in the wash on gentle. I wasn't 100% convenience that it would survive the washer. Surprisingly it did and it came out great.