Rainbow Blanket Tutorial

I just finished making this baby blanket for my cousin's new baby boy.  The rainbow colors just make me happy! I spent the week singing "Over the Rainbow" and craving skittles!  I liked making a strip rag quilt, as opposed to a rag quilt with squares, because you don't have to deal with the tricky intersections.  It comes together really quickly, with all straight seams.  Below are my directions for making a rainbow baby blanket.  You could, of course, make this with any fabrics.  Just keep in mind that only 1" of each strip will show, so avoid big patterns.

Strip rainbow rag quilt tutorial:

Supplies:

3/4 yard each of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple flannel

Rotary Mat, ruler, blade

Ragging Shears

Iron your fabric, but DO NOT PREWASH
Using your rotary cutter, trim selvedge, and then cut 2" strips from (removed) selvedge to selvedge.

After you are done you will have a rainbow of fabrics.  You should have 12, 2" strips of each color, approximately 41", depending on selvedge size removed.  This will make 6 rainbows.

Match up pairs of strips, wrong sides together.  Sew them together, with right sides of different colors touching.  (An example stack of 4 fabrics would be red right side down, red right side up, orange right side down, orange  right side up.)  Use a 1/2" seam allowance.  It is easy to do but hard to put into words!  Basically the top and bottom layer of your quilt will be exposed, and you are sewing the seams so they all face upward.

I did all the red/orange together, then yellow/green, and finally blue/purple.  Make sure to put the first color on top each time, for example yellow of yellow/green.  You will have some length discrepancies, depending on the fabric and selvedge, but this will put them all on one end of the quilt, and it will be easier to even up later.

Finished strip pairs.

Next, lay out the red/orange and yellow/greens, with both seams sticking straight up.

Pinch the orange and yellow together, making sure to keep the seam upward.  Pin and sew orange/yellow together.  Repeat with all six sets.  Next add the blue and purple.

One of six completed rainbows.  Now sew the rainbows to each other.

Almost done with the sewing part!  The bottom corner is what the bottom of the quilt looks like; nice and smooth.  The top shows the seams that will be clipped and ragged.

Use your rotary supplies to even up the quilt.  I had quite a lot of size differences between the different colors.  The green, in particular, was a lot shorter than the other five.

Give the scraps you cut off to your kid for a kitty tail.

Now you need to top stitch around the perimeter of your quilt, still using a 1/2" seam allowance.  I just held each seam down before I went over it to make a smooth surface.

Now clip, clip, clip!  It feels like you are almost done, but this is actually the most labor intensive part.  You could use scissors, but I HIGHLY recommend getting ragging shears.  They are extra sharp, and have a spring so they bounce back after each snip.

Snip about every 1/4 inch, close to the seam, but don't snip through it.  On each row first snip next to the perimeter seam on each end, so that you can fold it over flat to snip easier.

This is the top clipped, but not yet washed.

And the smooth back of the quilt.  (Note, the green really is the same size as the other colors, but it looks smaller on the front.  I think the yellow is just a bully color and pushes it over.)

Now toss it in the washer!  Since you didn't prewash, be sure to throw in a color catcher sheet. (They are sold near the dryer sheets at any store.)  This will catch any colors that bleed.  I usually put just a tiny bit of soap in, and wash it on warm.

After the wash, but before the dryer, take it outside and shake as much of the loose frays off as you can.  Then into the dryer.  Check it every 5 or 10 minutes, because the lint trap will keep filling up.  Repeat the wash and dry at least one more time.  It will keep fluffing up every wash, but the majority will happen in the first two washes.

V Stitch baby blanket

This was the first time I have used a V Stitch to make a blanket, and really liked it.  The blanket came together so quickly, and except for the first row, you don't have to pay much attention to what you are doing at all.  I found this pattern on the Lion Brand Website.  The yarn was Lion Brand Vanna's Choice, which was baby soft, but still pretty chunky, and I needed 4 skeins.  I used a K hook.

DIRECTIONS: Ch 85. Row 1: (Dc, ch 1, dc) in 5th ch from hook (V-st made), *sk next 2 ch, V-st in next ch; rep from * across to last 2 ch, sk next ch, dc in last ch – 27 V-sts at end of this row. Rows 2-40: Ch 3, turn, V-st in each ch-1 sp across, dc in top of turning ch.         (Honestly, I didn't count the rows, but just went until it looked big enough to me.) Border: Single crochet at even intervals around all four sides.  (Original directions called for a picot border, but I don't like making them or how they look.)

Fringed fleece baby blanket

I have recently made both rag quilts and no sew fleece blankets, but this baby blanket is sort of a combination of each.  It does take a little sewing, but not much, and can easily be done start to finish in an afternoon.  (Or over a few days during naptime when the kiddos are sleeping.)

I bought 1 yard each of 3 types of fleece.  In this case a stripe, a solid green and a solid blue.  It was enough to complete two blankets, plus I had extra of the solids.

Step One: Cut the fabric into 9" squares.  I highly recommend using a rotary mat and cutter for this step.  With them you can get it done very quickly.  Fleece comes in 60" width.  So taking your 36" x 60" fleece, you will cut the 36" side equally into 4 parts, to make 9" strips.  Then cut this every 9" into squares.  This should get you 24 squares, plus some extra at the end.

Step Two: Design the blanket layout.  As you can see in the picture I used the striped fleece in every other block, and then alternated the green and blue.
A=Stripes
B=Blue
C=Green

ABACA            With this pattern you will need 13 of A, 6 of B, and 6 of C.
CABAC
ACABA
BACAB
ABACA

A second pattern to use, which will work with the remaining squares would be:

ABCAB            With this pattern you will need 9 of A, 8 of B, and 8 of C.
CABCA
BCABC
ABCAB
CABCA

But, of course, you can make whatever pattern you like.

Step Three:  Stitch together the squares.  Use a 1/2" seam allowance.  I have mine all laid out in the floor, and then sew them in an assembly line, one right after the next, without stopping to cut the thread between each one.  When you are done all the seams will be sticking up, so it is very important to make sure you sew them the right direction.  I usually pinch each set of fabric up, as they will be sewn, to remind me which side to sew together.  (I wish I had more pictures of this, but will have to add them when I do this blanket again.)

Begin by completing each row.  (At this point I don't pin, since it is just one 9" square to the next, and fleece doesn't shift much.)  Next, sew each row to the next.  Now I pin.  Again, be sure that you have all your completed seams sticking up in the same direction.

When all the rows are done I sew around the outside edge, again with a 1/2" allowance.  This isn't really needed, since fleece won't fray, but I think it gives it a nice finished look, and a good guide for making the fringe.

Step Four: Cut! Cut! Cut!  Make sure you have a good pair of sharp scissors.  I also highly recommend Fiskars rag quilt snips.  The blades are shorter than scissors, and they are spring loaded, so they bounce back each snip.  It will save you both time and arm pain!  You will be snipping fringe on every seam.  I do them about every 1/4", or as close together as I can while still being consistent.  It gets tricky as you come to where the squares overlap, since you will be cutting several layers at once.  Just do a few layers at a time if you need to, and be careful not to cut off fringe as you go down the opposite direction.  I usually do this with a few breaks in between.  It seems the easiest part of the job, but is really tiring on your forearm.

All done! Final size should be a 40" square.