Rag Quilts, Not Used for Cleaning

Rags for cleaning
Rags for baby spit up
"Rags to Riches"
Rags to cut up or rip apart
Rags to throw out

I know you have a rag bucket, my husband and I do. Okay we actually have two rag buckets. One for clean rags and one for the used rags. Rags are great! They are easy to grab when there's a clean up emergency then just toss them in the wash. Done! No fuss, no thought, no worrying about "did I mix those with something red? or "Did bleach get put in with them?" Who cares? They are just rags.

Well, rag quilts are not for cleaning up messes, they are not to be tossed into a bucket, and they certainly DO NOT get thrown out. Rag Quilts are quick and easy but they are not made from actual rags you have crammed in your rag bucket. They are made from random scrap pieces from your stash or you can put some thought into picking what fabrics to use. They are rag quilts because of the frayed raggedy edges you purposely create to give them a cuddly, snuggly, warm look. Let me show you:

These are pics I gathered off the internet of different rag quilts. You won't believe the variety and the beauty of these wonderful easy quilts.




Denim Jean Rag Quilt, made from denim jeans about to be tossed
or donated. Save those jeans and old shirts for quilt fabrics.



Flannel Rag Quilt. These make the best rag quilts.

Fancy Cathedral Window Rag Quilt

Long Strips Rag Quilt

 Click on Beverly's for a step by step tutorial and full instructions on how to create a rag quilt. Click on Missouri Star Quilt Company for another rag quilt tutorial. Try them out, you'll love them!!!

 

 

 



These are some great tutorials that I used to help me create my rag quilts. I completed one but I still have another that is now a UFO. I need to get crackin and get that one done. Never mind, it's always fun to have some projects you've set aside and then start back up.

 

 Let me take you step-by-step on how I made my quilt. Picture first of the completed quilt:

 

 

This is an almost finished quilt. I just forgot to get a picture of the clipped seams before I gave it to the little girl receiving this quilt.

 

Let's begin the quilt instruction:

 

I chose four different flannels that I had in my baby quilt fabric stash. I then purchased a light green flannel for the back of each block. With the rag quilts you cut your backing fabric into the same size blocks as your quilt top blocks.

 

I cut 10" squares from each fabric. If I remember right, I followed the tutorial from Beverly's website to create this one. One difference, I sewed "X"s instead of doing 1/4 seam around all four sides. I got that idea from Jenny Doan's tutorial because then I didn't have to do any quilting of the layers.

 

I cut a backing fabric 10" square and a yellow fabric 10" square and placed them wrong sides together and sewed the "X".

 

 

I got a little fancy and did some half square triangles for variety. Once I sewed the X in the middle of each block then I sewed the blocks together, row by row.

 

 



 

 

Sewing the rows together is a little bit different than what we quilters are use to. You know you did this right if your seams are showing on the front of the quilt and not on the back. Take two squares and bring them wrong sides together. (That's one non quilting technique) Next, you sew a 1" seam allowance not the usual 1/4" we always use. (Two non quilting techniques) Now repeat this process to complete a row.

 

 

 Almost finished!!! Now take your 1st and 2nd rows and put them wrong sides together (again against quilting norms), and sew the rows with 1" seam allowance. This large of seam allows you to complete the last and final step for a rag quilt. Now sew all the rows together.

Your quilt should look like this after all rows are sewn together. One more step before the fun part begins. Now take your entire quilt and you are going to sew a 1" seam allowance on all four sides of the quilt. The quilting and sewing is complete.

The last and finaly step. Making the raggedy part of the quilt. Take a good pair of scissors and every seam you have you are going make fringes. Start at one corner and cut up to but not through the stitching. Move over a little bit and cut again. Keep going around the entire quilt. Then do the same with the seams between each block. Every seam needs to be fringed.

Then you can throw the quilt into the wash and then toss it into the dryer. It's been suggested that you put a tennis ball into the dryer with the quilt and this will help make the fringing fluffier or assist with more fraying.

 

 It's all about the fringe. The more fraying the better!!

Happy Rag Quilting!!!

 

Classic Quilt-Railfence Block Quilt

My first encounter with the Railfence block was in my Quilting 101 class I took 8 years ago. I did a sampler quilt. This is what the Railfence Block looks like: 

 

Check out the photo below and count how many Railfence blocks we used.



Can you spot the railfence block? How many times is it used?


















I found a pattern on line of a Railfence quilt layout and printed it out. I got a pen and outlined where each block was, then I figured out the measurements, block size, and colors. I did  all of that from one printout online. 

My printout from the Internet with all my notes and fabrics I was
going to use for this quilt.

Below are the Step-by-Step instructions how to take this block and create a quilt using just these 3 colors as you see in this quilt.

Step 1: Choose a light, medium, and dark fabric and cut 8- 2 1/2" x 42" strips from each fabric.

Step 2: Arrange 3 strips of each color how you desire. In my sisters quilt, I chose colors that would match her décor in her apartment. So I decided to arrange the strips with Khaki sewn to the green and then the green sewn to the Red.

Step 3: After you have sewn all the sets of 3 fabrics together measure your strip set to see how wide the strips are. If my calculations are correct you should be cutting the strips into 6 1/2" squares and you should have about 48 squares. Now comes the fun part of using the Railfence block.

Step 4: Take two of the blocks you just cut and layout 6 of them in a row. You can start the first one laying vertical then the next block in line turn horizontal. Do this until you lay out your first row. Then the 2nd row do just the opposite. You will have 8 rows of 6 blocks. Using your creativity, audition diverse ways to turn the blocks to create whatever pattern you desire. Here is what pattern I chose:

I chose to have my light color on the outside on the first block and on the top of the second block. And then continued that pattern all the way across. 

Step 5: sew the blocks together in each row.
Step 6: Sew each row together to complete your quilt top.
Step 7: I added two borders, an inner border using the "Khaki" Fabric and the "Blenders Red" for the outside border.
Step 8: Sandwich the backing, batting, and quilt top then quilt however you desire. I chose a simple "Stitch in the Ditch" and scalloped the edges before binding the quilt. For my backing I used "Calico Leaf" green fabric with the Khaki fabric for the binding.

There are many variations you can do with this quilt including how many colors you use in each strip.

Let me show you the baby quilt I made using five fabrics instead of three. My quilt instructor at "Sun Valley Quilt" shop showed me how to make this one. It's one of my most favorites.

I'll give the directions and measurements below.

 

 

You will need 5 fabrics of the same hue, we did green. we started with a dark green and chose four other fabrics each lighter than the previous one. You want your first fabric to be dark and your last fabric to be light. This is also a great way to learn the differences between lights, mediums, and darks, hues, shades and color choices.

 

You will do 7 Railfence blocks across and 8 blocks down.

 

Cut your 5 fabrics into 1 1/2" strips.



Sew 1 strip of each color together. Rinse and Repeat, OK Sew and Repeat.

 

This is what you should get after you've done all your sewing:

 

Now cut from each strip set 5 1/2" squares. Again, Cut and Repeat until you have 56 blocks.

 

 

Arrange these blocks to create whatever pattern you desire just by turning the blocks and matching colors. You should have enough blocks to do 7 blocks in each row with 8 rows. Have fun playing with colors and hues. 

 

These are pretty fast and easy quilts and the results are amazing just by the way you turn the Railfence blocks.

 

Baby quilt for my cousin, Mandy, in Australia for their
first baby.

 

Quilt for my Sister, Bree, to use as décor in her condo.

 

Forks in the Quilt Making Road

As I was working on my next quilt project, 10-minute blocks, I discovered along the way forks in my quilt making road. Not just one fork but multiple forks. Have you come to forks in your quilt making road? Let me explain:

My road began with a need for a very quick and easy quilt needing to be completed Monday, April 8th but starting on Friday, April 5th. So you see I didn't have a whole lot of time. I  decided to create a quilt using the quilt pattern of 10-minute blocks which I found on YouTube as a tutorial. Click the book cover below to watch the tutorial.



The first fork in my quilt making road I came to was: Fabric choices, cost and size of blocks that would be cost effective. I discovered I did not have the fabric in my stash so what do I choose now?
Fork: Go to the Left and purchase fabric with exact size blocks or go to the right and make the blocks out of bandannas and 5" blocks which, by the way, only costs $1.00 per bandanna.

Choice: Go to the right and purchase bandannas and do 5" blocks instead of the 10" ones in the book. Result?

   

So I cut the bandanas into 5" blocks and began arranging them into various color options and design patterns. This is where a design wall comes in handy, however, I do not have one of those, I have a design carpet bedroom floor. It works fabulously and Bremley, the Quilting Kitty and Caesar, the Quilt Tester have an easier time doing their jobs as assistants. See for yourself:

 

 

 

Caesar, the quilt tester, waiting for his que to test
my quilt.

 

Now that I had thing arranged how I wanted I began the process of making each block. One block used five 5" squares. A 4-square block with a square in the middle. Here's how to do it.

 

  

Take that square in the middle and fold it in half, if you use bandanas or batiks it won't matter which side you use, wrong sides together. Place raw edges on the bottom edge of upper right corner square. (Orange on top yellow square). Bring the Top left square face down on top of folded square. (Blue top of Orange and yellow) Sew a 1/4" seam on left side. Open it up and look what you get.

I pressed the blue and yellow seams together.

Now here comes the next step: Place the folded square on top of the bottom left square and line it up at the top of that block. (Orange on yellow)

Take the Lower Right square (Blue) and place it under the folded center square. (Orange) Place the Lower Left square (Yellow) on top of folded center square, face down and sew a 1/4" on left side. Let's open it up with wrong sides together and press. What do we get?

 

A sort of "H" shape

 

Now comes the fun, magic part. Watch carefully or replay the tutorial a couple of times. Take two blocks you see on top (Blue and Yellow in this case) and bring right sides together. Yep, just pick them right up. Don't worry about the back two. They'll fall into place and ignore the center piece for just a moment. This is what it should look like at this stage:

 

 

 

 

Wait!!! The magic is just about to happen!! Look!! Watch very, very carefully!!! Before your very eyes, take that center folded piece and spread it open like a triangle. What you are really doing is opening the center square and spreading east and west to match up the seams of the top and bottom blocks. It's going to be a bit awkward, however, this is how it will look:

 

This is the inside of the center folded block when spread
East and West or mooshed into a triangle.

Now quickly pin it once you have a triangle and the seams match up and the fabric of the triangle is even with the raw edge of the block. Now sew a 1/4" down that side, yes even over the triangle. But don't run over your needle. That's very bad.





Now open up your block and look what has happened!!!!!

With 5 pieces of fabric and only 3 seams, YES, that's what I said, only 3seams,

You get.....

 

 

MAGIC!!! A diamond in the middle of your block!!!. Now you can leave it just like that or... Wait!!

Here is another fork in the road....

 

Fork: Go Right= Leave square exactly how it is and you get a 3-D look or Go Left= Bring in the sides of the square, pin them down and sew all the way around. (Cathedral look)

 

I will choose to go left but this is where I discovered a little more difficult "Fork in my quilt making road", Go Right=this will take longer than a weekend (Smaller blocks) choose a different pattern. Go Left= Keep going with this and let the Birthday Girl know her quilt will be coming soon.

 

I chose to go Right. I wanted her to have her quilt for Monday so here was my alternative quilt.

 

 

Therefore, Forks in the quilt making road are great to have and keep you on your toes. So keep an eye out for your own forks and choose your own adventure!!!!



Self-binding Super Duper Easy Quilt

I needed a lightning fast, I mean Nascar racing, big wave surfing, bullet bike riding fast, quilt. My next door neighbors just welcomed a beautiful baby boy so I knew he would need a new, warm and snuggly quilt. So I searched my patterns but didn't really find anything that I could get done quickly. I then remembered a tutorial on YouTube done by Jenny Doan. It's called "Self-binding Baby Quilt".

I already tried out this pattern with a wall hanging. It was perfect!!! I found some adorable fabric in my stash, booted up my laptop and pulled up tutorial. Quilting along with the tutorial was great!! Let me share with you my super fast quilt and how I did it.

Ladies and Gentleman!!!!! Introducing, Jenny Doan and her tutorial!!!!

 

Self-binding Baby Quilt

 

 

Now you can follow Jenny and I and make your own Self-binding quilt.

 

Here are two of my quilts and how I made mine.

 

Baby quilt for next door neighbor's brand new baby boy.

Made this Asian fabric self-binding quilt
to add color to guest bedroom.

Let me show you how I made these quilts in 30 minutes or less.

 

Here is the fabric I chose for the baby blanket. I love the cute little dog, especially his floppy ears and adorable face. The backing fabric is the cute little bears with a variety of colors.

 

 

   



 

  So after choosing your fabric it's time for cutting. The backing fabric needs to be cut at the larger size. 40" square for the backing fabric. The puppy dog fabric is cut at the 30" square size.

 

Now comes the fun part! This next step is what makes the quilt but you'll feel it's quite awkward to do. Just hang in there and you'll be amazed!!!!

 

first find and pin the centers on all four sides of each piece of fabric. Then lay the 30" square fabric, pretty side down, on top of the 40" square. You are going to match up the pins. Remove one pin and use the other to pin both fabrics together at each center point. Ignore how the quilt looks. It's going to look a bit wonky. let me show you!!!

 

Matching the centers with both layers.

It looks wonky and crazy but don't give up.
it's going to work, I promise!!

More pinning together the 40" and  30" squares
of fabric.

It's not neat or tidy but just wait, you won't believe
what all this craziness becomes.

 Now that the crazy pinning is all done here comes the magic of this self-binding quilt. What you are going to do is sew the two pieces of fabric together. Don't forget your quilting feline and canine to test your fabric and to check on your progress.

Bremley, my Quilting Kitty

Ceasar, my Quilt Tester

As you sew the layers, don't forget to leave an opening to turn the quilt. Your quilt is going to have little rabbit ears on all four corners after you sew all sides closed.

 

Cute little rabbit ears

 

Now this next part you may need to stop the tutorial and replay. You are going to be creating mitred corners and Jenny has a magical way to do this. It's all in the placement of the ruler. Let me show you!

It's all in the folding and where to line up the ruler.

Pencil line to mark where you are going to stitch.

Penciled line is for your personal sewing guide.
You are going to stitch right on the line.

 

You are almost done. You just need to cut a 1/4" from the stitched line to remove the excess fabric. You should have four little triangles left over.

 

 

Triangles from the corners. Maybe they can be
used in another project.

 

 

Is the quilt done yet? I'm getting sleepy!!



I'm working the pedal as fast as I can!!!

Phew, this quilting stuff is hard work!!! But I love
all that fabric and thread. Ohhh thread, can I play with some?!!! 





Now that the corners are trimmed you can turn your quilt. Flip the quilt right side out and presto change!!!! You have a self-binding quilt. You can get creative with your decorative stitches. Choose a stitch and go around your entire quilt so you can close up the opening that you used to turn your quilt. Magic!!!

 

 

 

 

 I hope this is something you can use for quick and easy gifts. This is perfect for baby quilts, Christmas gifts, or last minute projects. Which us quilters never are in need of last minute projects.

 

 

 Wishing you happy quilting from Me, Cambria, Bremley, the Quilting Kitty, and Ceasar, the Quilt Tester!!!