WIP Update

With only 3 days left to this month I wanted to share the only thing I've finished so far.  Blame busy-ness,  long loved visitors, temperamental sewing machine determined to break, for the delay.

When I posted the WIP for the chevron rag quilt, I only had this sketched diagram of what I thought I wanted.

 

I found out pretty soon that what was in my head did not transfer easily to the cloth.

My intention was to only rag the chevron stripes and leave the rest of the fabric smooth.  I cut out all the triangles, squares and rectangles I needed. and sewed them down the middle.

 Sewed triangles wrong sides together.

Sewed the triangulated squares together.  So far so good...

 

  But then I thought about the point

What would I do with the point when I sewed the rows together?  I could cut it off but that would compromise the look of the chevron stripe.  Then I thought about how the whole thing would look since now the front and the back of the quilt would have ragged edges.  That would not work!  That would be way too much cutting!  How could a baby lay on such a bumpy quilt?  It definitely needed a smooth side.  So I turned to a quilt I made over 2 years ago:

 The Charlie Brown Rag Quilt

This is how I should make the quilt this time.

I deconstructed what I had started and re-sewed everything, putting wrong sides together the usual way.

 

Here is the result of the Chevron Stripe Baby Rag Quilt

Front

Back

I am pleased to say the Mother-to-be was happy.

WIP for FEB.

I saw this blog, Never too Hot to Stitch, and I wanted to join in to be more accountable for getting my projects done.  Here are my works in progress for February:

I'm working on a baby blue bordered t-shirt quilt for a teacher's son

 

I finished just the top of this t-shirt quilt

 

I'm working on a little lap quilt of the scrabble board just for fun.

And I have to make a baby rag for a shower on Sunday.  I'm thinking I want to try a chevron pattern.

My goal will be to post the finished quilts before or by February 28.

Sewing Room Clean Up Along - Before Pics

I was reading through my favorite blog posts last night and I found the challenge by Sewingbymoonight  to clean up my "explosive creativity".  How did she know my sewing room looked like an explosion of creativity?  Actually, I love that description over my own : "horrible mess."  I always like to "tidy up" the room after each quilt or project is finished but I'm coming off two rag quilts, one in progress and two t-shirt quilts in progress so this challenge could not have come at a better time.

So here are my Before pictures of my sewing room (my favorite room in the house).

When you first walk in and look to the left you see finished quilts that should go into a closed bin to keep them dust and cat/dog hair free.  You also see WIP's and stacks of unorganized cut fabrics.

Next stop, my very cool Ikea shelf that was supposed to hold and organize all my flannels, fleeces, hankies, etc.  I should have gotten the bigger one...

My window on the world featuring the cat perch, aka my ironing board.  (Last night I was ironing and I walked away for just a moment.  My cat, Andy, jumped onto the ironing board and tipped the hot iron onto the faux wood blinds.  I now have a lovely melted hole in one of the slats...)

  The sewing factory where all the projects are made.  There's a box under the table which holds the scraps I might use for tea wallets.  There's a T-shirt quilt in progress.  There is a bin of denim for the back pocket wallets I make with my son.  My way too small pin up board for my  diagrams and inspirations. And my almost unuseable cutting mat.  (I usually cut my fabric at the kitchen table.)

So there is my "Before" tour.  I so hope I can post beautiful "After" pictures.  Thanks for the motivation Sewingbymoonlight !

Quilt scraps

When you make quilts, you make scraps. I have been trying to come up with some good things to make out of the scraps.  Here's some of the things I have made with my scraps.

 quilts

stroller quilts

 burp cloths

 Doggy rag quilts

 pillows

and especially tea wallets

Please share what you've done with your quilt scraps.

The Most Challenging Rag Quilt

I have loved the challenges people present to me with their rag quilt ideas.  I've done a baby clothes rag quilt, a baby receiving blanket rag quilt adding hand painted kid prints to the back, a Charlie Brown rag quilt, a quilt made from a panel of fabric where I had to keep the pattern intact and a rag quilt with a stripe running through the perimeter.  However, the most challenging, (frustrating), rewarding rag quilt I've made was one for a friend who works at the Methodist church.

She asked if I could make a rag quilt with the Methodist cross and flame symbol on it and without thinking I said "of course."

I took a few days to just think about how I would do this. 

I started actually working on the quilt in July.

I knew I wanted to make it a lap size 5 squares by 5 squares.  I knew that white would be the color surrounding the cross and flame.  My friend picked out the fabrics she wanted, the most important being the cross and flame fabric.

She also wanted a black polka dot border around the entire quilt to frame the cross and flame.

I started constructing the cross and flame by sketching it out on a little square of paper.

Then on a roll of thin brown wrapping paper.   I cut the drawing into 9" squares, my usual size for rag quilt squares. The thin paper proved to be too flimsy a choice for using as a pattern so I transferred these drawings to heavy grocery bag brown paper.  A great way to reuse those bags.

(I saved those pattern pieces for a long time but a recently tossed them when I considered making another one of these quilts).

  Some of the things I tried didn't really work for one reason of another. The red fabric of the flame in some parts was too thin and delicate to simply sew down.  I used a double sided fusible material and fused the smaller pieces onto the white background then sewed around them. I had wanted the cross and flame to actually be ragged but found that was not working so a made it more of a fray edge.  The cross at one point was looking too big as well. 

And where the cross crossed the flame just didn't look right.
I took the whole thing apart twice and started all over.







I would put the quilt away and bring it back out and just stare at it trying to figure a better way to do it.  I mostly didn't want to break up the flame and cross but finally I realized that was the only way it would work as a true rag quilt.

I resorted to praying about it for divine inspiration because I knew my friend would be keeping it in her church office.   I decided to break up the picture which gave the quilt a window pane look.  I was very happy with the  way the quilt was turning out now and I believe my hands were being guided.   Thank God!

I wanted to stop at this point but it was not my quilt so I added the final black fabric with multi-colored polka dots and in December I finally gave my friend her quilt.

The most challenging rag quilt I've ever made.

The Hard Parts of Making a Baby Memory Rag Quilt

I had done a number of t-shirt quilts and a whole bunch of rag quilts and at the time I felt like I knew exactly what I was doing making a rag quilt.  So when a teacher friend, who knew about my rag quilts, asked me to make her a quilt from all of her sons baby clothes I was scared to death that I would damage, harm, and completely mess up these treasured items.  I asked her if she would allow me to make the clothes into a rag quilt.  She said yes!  I thought it would be a snap but it turned out to be so much harder than I expected.

I started by cutting up the tiny, sweet smelling baby things which was heart wrenching actually. I kept thinking "what if I mess up..."  Then having to throw away the little scrap pieces I was not going to use.  Ohhh So hard! But I kept going.

Another hard part was deciding which part of the adorable clothes I was going to use.   I ended up cut and pasting some of the cutest designs.  I cut one tiny baseball shirt apart and made two squares out of it with the little tiny buttons still on.  I sewed a border of a coordinating blue cotton around each little cloth, cut squares of a coordinating blue flannel, 2 per square and sewed the squares together as I would a regular rag quilt.

I was very happy with the result after I had clipped all the seams but I had fallen in love with this little blue baby boy quilt. The absolute hardest part of all was giving it to my friend.

How to make a Handkerchief Rag Quilt

This is my first tutorial and my first multi-size handkerchief rag quilt.

  I usually collect hankies until I have enough of the same size and simply put them together in the normal way for a rag quilt but I had so many hankies of various sizes that I was not using because I didn't have enough of a particular size.  I wanted to figure out a good way to make the quilt using all the different sizes.  I thought I could put a small size next to a big size and it would all work out in the end but the seams didn't match up and I didn't like the look so here is what I did instead.

Step 1:  Sort and organize your hankies as to size.  I have an 11" pile, a 12 - 12 1/2" pile, a 13 - 13 1/2" pile and a 14" and above pile.

Step 2:  Iron each hanky and inspect for yellowing.  The ironing will help you get the correct measurement.

. 

If your vintage handkerchiefs look yellowed you can try a trick I found on Pinterest that really worked.  I found it here.   I wish I had taken the "before" picture of this hanky I tried it on but here is the "after."  It looks amazing!

  

Step 4:  Layout your hankies in the array you want them to be in for your quilt alternating the sizes.

                       

Step 5:  Take a picture of your layout.  You don't really have to do this step but I find that my cats love to mess up my layouts.  The pictures have saved me many times.  Pick up the hankies by row so it will be easy to sew in the right order.

Step 6:  Select the largest size hanky and cut your flannel that same size.  I am using flannel and fleece for this rag quilt.  I like to use fleece with the very delicate hankies to give the quilt a nice weight.  I cut my flannel and fleece squares 13 1/4".  (The 1/4" was just my insurance.)

Step 7:  Layer the hanky and the flannels (and fleece if you are using it).  I've made hanky quilts with just a hanky and two slices of flannel and it turns out beautifully.  For this one I layered hanky, flannel, fleece and flannel.  If the hanky is close to the size of the flannel squares then simply sew your traditional X through all 3 or 4 layers.

 

If your hanky is smaller than an inch from the edge of the flannel like this:

 Pin it

 

 Sew it onto just the first layer of flannel

 

Like this

Then layer the other fabrics and sew through all the layers with the traditional X like this

Step 8:  When all the smaller hankies are sewn onto flannel and layered and all the hankies are sewn with an X, now you can begin to assemble the quilt.  Alternate the small hankies with the large hankies as you did in the original array and sew them together in a row.  I used a one inch seam on mine for a very fluffy look.

 

Step 9:  Sew all the rows together matching the seams as you go.

Step 10:  Sew around the perimeter of the quilt.  I do a double perimeter seam for added strength and I think it looks pretty too.

Step 11:   (Gently lift cat off quilt)  Clip all the seams as you would any rag quilt.  

Step 12:  Machine wash your quilt.  With Hanky quilts I use a delicate setting and dry on low.  They wash up beautifully and this last step helps to give a nice full fluffy look to your seams.  Admire your results:

 

 

Update 2/23/14

I have sometimes cut through the hanky edge as part of the fluffy seams but if you don't want to cut into your precious hankies, make all your flannel squares 1" larger than your largest hanky.  Sew down each of your hanky edges onto the first layer of flannel.  When you sew the squares together you will only be snipping the flannel, not the hankies.

Most of my hanky quilts are made with 3 layers of white flannel.

Update 10/18/15

I recently made a vintage hanky quilt for a customer and I tried something different that I will continue to do.  I sewed the hanky onto white muslin  instead of flannel and then layered that square with the normal middle and backing in white flannel.  I loved the look and the feel of the muslin and it didn't change the fluffy seams at all.  It gave the whole quilt a nice fresh sheet feel.  Here's a picture:

Update 4/3/16

Check out the revised Step 12.  Thank you to Judy for reminding me of this very important (previously missing) step.

Update 4/23/16

Here is my latest hanky quilt. This one I made a heart design with the hankies.   I'm posting it to show what the back looks like.

Update 8/1/19

I just read through this post to see if what I had written way back in 2013 was still the way I make these quilts.  I have made sooo many since then and I do everything almost the same way BUT now I find the largest hanky and I cut my muslin 2" larger.  This ensures that I will not cut into any of the hankies when I cut the seams.  I also always do my hanky quilts with 4 layers - hanky, muslin, flannel, flannel. No more fleece unless someone asks for that.