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| My First Baby Rag Quilt! |
During a girl's weekend shopping trip last fall, I ran across the most precious flannel baby blanket in a specialty store. It was patchwork-like with tiny frayed edges, soft and as cute as can be. It didn't look too complicated to make but I was missing one essential piece of equipment...a sewing machine and oh by the way, I hadn't sewn since my high school 4-H days. So after my mom sent me one of her extra sewing machines, I immediately began searching for patterns like the quilt I had seen and found an easy to follow
Baby Rag Quilt Tutorial on Pinterest.
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| Laying out the pattern |
I split out the work over three days and spent about 3 hours each day to make the crib-size baby quilt. I bought the fabric and cut all of the squares on Saturday, sewed on Sunday and snipped, washed and dried on Monday. My kids helped me "make the sandwiches" and sew the X's. It was a real team effort and pleasant re-introduction to sewing! I had the most fun snipping out the seams to make the fringe. That's what really makes it pretty! :)
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| Sewn squares and rows |
A few tips when you try this yourself:
- Use a rotary cutter and cutting board. I went through one blade cutting all of my fabric and batting so you may want to have some extra blades handy!
- Measure squares accurately and try to finish all of your cutting in one sitting.
- Sew carefully to keep consistent seam measurements.
- Don't wear black when you are snipping the seams or you'll be covered in lint!
- After washing and drying, be prepared for a lot of lint. I used a tape lint brush to really get in the "rag" edges. (Note, I didn't pre-wash my flannel.)
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| All sewn together - before snipping the edges |
Picking out the fabric styles for my quilt turned out to be the hardest part of this project for me! There are so many varieties and styles of flannel prints available so fabric stores tend to group like color schemes together. You can buy pre-cut flannel squares, it costs more but it saves cutting time. If you use them, have an idea of the quilt size you plan to make and how many squares you will need for the front and back to make sure you get all of the pieces you need!
