Quilted coasters

I made these based on a tutorial from Martha Stewart.  The only thing I did differently was to use free hand quilting.  I figured this was a great size project to get in some practice machine quilting before working on wall hangings or quilts.  I love how quick they were to put together, how it used up some scraps, and how easy they are to toss in the washer when they get covered in coffee stains!

Fall quilted wall hanging

I just finished this fall wall hanging for my house. I hung it up in the family room, in a spot I hope to switch out with other seasonal wallhangings.

I found the pattern online here.

Rag quilt letters

I made a set of cotton letters for my niece Ella's first birthday.  I followed this tutorial from a blog called Happy Together.

I just grabbed a bunch of cotton scraps and made each letter a different fabric, the same front and back.  For the middle layer I used Warm and Natural batting.  I thought it "ragged" the best after a few washings.  I decided not to quilt the letters, like she did on the tutorial.  I tried one with quilting and one without, and liked them the same, so went with the easier style!  For the letters I used the font Ariel Black in size 500.  (Set them to "outline" style so you don't use up so much ink.)

Happy birthday, sweet Ella!

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.

Christmas Rag Quilt

 

After I finished Zachary's quilt, I was still in the rag quilt sort of mood.  I have a lot of scrap fabric, so I was going to dig through and pick out reds and greens to make a Christmas quilt.  But when I got to the fabric store to buy a few more supplies I ended up with all new stuff.  

I did a few things differently this time, besides the size.

• Instead of batting, I used a layer of flannel, cut the same size as the other squares.  I liked this a lot.  The blanket has a very nice weight.  I used green flannel, and the color peeks through all the seams.
• I used regular cotton fabric on the top, instead of flannel.  This worked just as well, and adds a huge range of choices for colors and patterns.
• I used a solid color for the backs of the squares, red flannel this time.
• I didn't sew the X's across each square fabric sandwich.  I read this didn't need to be done if you are using flannel batting.  I wouldn't skip this step again.  I think the squares get a little bunchy.  And after I clipped the seams and washed it, over half of the intersections fell apart and had to be sewn again.

I had intended for this to be a gift, but after I had to fix so many of the intersections I think it looks funny.  But at least I have a Christmas quilt, now!

Rag Quilt Tutorial

Last summer I made a rag quilt for Abigial, and I just finished one for Zachary. They are so easy to make. Each step progresses quickly into the next. I finished this one, from fabric selection to on the bed, in about a week and a half, just working on it an hour here and an hour there.

I made Abigail's after reading a bunch of blogs with other tutorials. My two favorites were from Green Apple Orchard and Jen Yu.

The following is my personal flannel rag quilt tutorial.

In each quilt I let the kids pick their own fabrics. So even if a few fabrics stand out to my eye, the kids love 'em. The tutorial will follow Zachary's quilt, but I'll refer to Abigail's a few times, since they were done a bit differently. These are also directions to make a twin sized quilt, but it would be simple to just use less squares to make a throw size or a baby size. Figuring out the math is one of the funnest parts! (Really, my mommy brain loves a minor challenge here and there.)

Materials needed:
Flannel to cut 240 8" squares. (DO NOT PREWASH)
     We used 60 of the green, 60 of the blue, and 10 each of 12 random fabrics.
     So I bought 3 1/2 yards each of the blue and green and 1/2 yard of the 12 randoms.
Batting to cut 120 6.5" squares (I like Warm and Natural 100% Cotton)
Matching thread
Walking foot for your sewing machine (Optional, but hugely helpful)
Rotary mat, ruler and cutter
Ragging Shears
Coffee

First step is to cut away! The batting squares need to be 1.5" smaller than the fabric squares. Since I did 8" squares of fabric, I needed 6.5" squares of batting. This was perfect, since my rotary ruler is 6.5" I could measure and cut very quickly.

Next cut all the fabric into 8" squares.
Here is everything in squares, except the green is missing. Perhaps I did bad math earlier in the week and didn't buy enough fabric. Perhaps I needed more coffee also.

The next step is assembling little fabric sandwiches. You will layer fabric, right side down, a batting square, and then fabric on top, right side up. Then sew and X across each square, sewing from corner to corner. The fabrics stick together well enough I don't pin.

I do this assembly line style, sewing a stack one direction, close together, snipping between, and then sewing the other way. You do not need to do the reinforcement stitch at this point.
Finishing the X the other way

After you have all the squares into a sandwich, lay out your pattern. (Abigail's quilt was in a set pattern, so I figured it out on paper, and then just grabbed the squares as needed.) Zachary wanted his quilt random. So I laid out the blue and greens in a pattern first, and then he placed all the fun fabrics between.

He ended up not very random, though, but wanted each fabric to run 5 in a row on the diagonals, with a little fudging in the corners to make it work.
I took one picture of it all for my reference in assembling.
I also decided to pin the numbers 1 through 12 on the left most square. Then I picked them up in order, and stacked them.

Next lay out one row at a time in order.

You will be sewing the entire quilt with the seams facing up. So to help remember which seam to sew, I literally pinch each intersection up so I know what edge I will be sewing.
Assemble each row, sewing with 1/2" seam allowance. I marked 1/2" with a fancy masking tape and sharpie line. You still do not need to pin or do the reinforcement stitch each time.

A completed row. Note all the seams sticking up at each intersection.

Once all the rows are completed, start putting them together. My little numbers helped here, especially, so I didn't have to keep referring back to the picture. Line the two rows up, and make sure you think through which side to sew so that the seams all remain up in the same direction.
Now it is time to pin. You have two choices with the intersections. You can either send the top one way and the bottom the other way, like the first picture, or split each side, like the second picture. I prefer the top way, but it makes no difference in the end, as each seam intersection will be clipped apart. I just think this way was easier to feed through my machine. Add in the reinforcement stitch now, too.


Here are two completed rows, with the view from the top, with all seams up.
And here is the view of the smooth bottom.

After it is all assembled, finish it off by stitching all the way around the exterior, with the 1/2" seam allowance.

Almost done! Now it is time to snip and snip all the seam allowances. You can do it with scissors, but these Fiskars ragging shears work so well and make the job easier and faster. I have one pair like this, and one pair that looks more like regular scissors but have a spring to make them bounce back. They both work well, but I prefer the ones in the picture. (Having a second pair came in handy when Nathanael helped me snip half this quilt, though!)
Snip about every 1/4", making sure not to go through the seams. (No big deal if you do, but it will need to be resewn.)
When you get to each row, first clip once at each side of the intersection, and then the quilt will lay flat when you fold it along the seam.
And then you can continue to clip along the length of the quilt. The intersections can be a bit tricky, but any technique will work as long as you get though all the layers.
After it is all clipped, you need to wash it. Some blogs said to take it to a laundromat, but I didn't have any troubles in my washer. I use Shout Color Catcher sheets in the washer. They look like dryer sheets, but grab any color that may bleed, since the flannel isn't prewashed. After the first wash take it outside and shake out as much of the lint as you can. Then dry, checking the lint trap every 15 minutes or so to clear it out. I washed and dried twice before calling it done, but it will keep getting softer and fluffier along the ragged seams with each wash.


Abigail's quilt used 7" squares, 1/2" seam allowances, so 6" final square. It was 11 rows by 14 columns, final dimensions 66"x84". She picked 10 different fabrics, and wanted them in a nice pattern. The first row used fabrics 1-10 sequentially, plus an extra #1. The second row went 2-10, plus 1 and 2. The third row went 3-10, then 1-3, etc.

Zachary's quilt used 8" squares, 1/2" seam allowances, so 7" final squares. It was 10 rows by 12 columns, final dimensions 70"x82".