Deena's Craft Corner

I have always loved the look of Rag Quilts!  My mom is a quilter.  I am not nearly as talented as her, but I do love to make baby quilts!  My husband and I have been doing foster care for 4 years.  We started taking infants 2 1/2 years ago and so I decided I needed some baby blankets, not just my crocheted baby afghans.  So I bought some neutral fabric that I loved and got to work!

The traditional rag quilt is made with flannel fabric for both the front and back of the quilt with batting in the center but I wanted something different.  I found my inspiration here!  So I used Calico fabric for the front, flannel fabric instead of batting and Minky fabric for the back.

Materials:

• Approximately 2 yards of fabric – I used Calico prints from Joann’s Fabric store
• 1 yard of batting or 1 yard of flannel – I used brown flannel
• 1 yard of backing material – I used Minky fabric
• Cutting mat and rotary cutter
• Coordinating thread
• Sharp scissors – I love my Tim Holtz Scissors – Tim Holtz Kushgrip – Micro Serrated Snips

Directions:

Cut all your fabric for the front of your baby quilt into squares.  You can do any size square.  In this quilt, I used 4×4 inch squares.

You will also need to cut all the fabric for the back of your quilt.  You will also make these squares the same size as the pieces you cut for the front of your quilt.  I use a cutting mat, rotary cutter and ruler to make this process quick and easy!  The handle that you see on my ruler is actually a suction handle for a shower or bath.  Using it makes picking your ruler up without moving your material so much easier.  You can purchase them on Amazon  – here: Mommy’s Helper Safer Grip 11.5″

The last step for cutting your material is your filler or center piece.  On a traditional rag quilt, you would use a thin batting and cut it 1″ smaller than your material.  So if my material was cut into 4″ squares then my batting would be cut into 3″ squares.  But because I am not using flannel for my top or bottom pieces, I need flannel for my center pieces so that it will “shred” and look like a rag quilt.  If you use flannel for your filler, then you cut it the same size as your other fabric pieces.

It is hard to see on the next picture, but you then layer your fabric with the flannel sandwiched in the middle.  The right side of your fabric needs to face out for both your top and bottom layers.

To save time you can use an assembly line process to sew your blocks together.  You sew two diagonal lines on each block to form an X.  Sew all of your blocks before moving on to the next step.

Once you have all of your X’s sewn on your blocks, lay them out and decide how you want your quilt to look.  You can use as little as 2 different types of fabric.  I used 7 in my quilt because I wanted more of a scrappy look to my blanket.

Once you have your pattern laid out, sew your pieces together in order to make rows.  I used a 1/2″ seem in my quilt.  You can use as little as 1/2″ seem up to a 1″ seem.  The larger your seem is, the more “raggy” your quilt will look.  Once your rows are complete, start sewing them together to complete your quilt top.  After you have completed sewing all your rows together you need to sew all the way around the outside of the quilt.  Use the same seem allowance.

Here are pictures of the back and front of my completed quilt…only one more step to go – get your scissors out and start snipping!

This part of the quilt will go much faster if you have a nice sharp set of scissors.  I really like using my Tim Holtz scissors for this.  They are mildly serrated, so they cut great!  Make sure NOT to cut too deep on your fabric.  you don’t want to cut any of your seems you just sewed.  The last step is to wash and dry your new baby blanket.  When you wash it, the flannel part of the fabric will start to fray and give you the “rag” look!

Here is my completed baby quilt – I LOVE how it turned out!  Please feel free to email me with any questions – Happy Quilting!