Sapphire Quilt: Rag quilt

A few Saturdays ago, I attended a rag quilting class. It was wonderful, so I thought I would share. There were about 7 of us at class, and it was quite a wide range of people attending. There was one girl about 10 years, all the way up to two older ladies who had a machine that looked like it was maybe made in the 1960s. One of the ladies did her sewing by hand.

We starting by picking our fabrics. I was late...as usual, and so there were few choices left. I got lucky, though, because I loved the fabric I got. I had three colors, which created a nice look.

To create the quilt, we started by taking two 6.5 in squares of fabric and sewing them together with a 5.5 in sqare of batting in between. We then sewed an X from corner to corner on each sqare. There were a total of 108 squares in the quilt I made.

After you get all the squares sewed together (which takes a long time!), you are ready to start peicing the quilt into your final pattern. It is important to do this carefully and to take your time. It is easy to get "off" and to put the wrong side out or in, etc. Match things up and pin the squares. One side will be smooth on all seams; on the other side, all seams will be out or showing.

I recommend doing a row at a time and then sewing the rows together as you go. make sure you carefully lay seams dowing in the same direction as you go row to row. Hard to give too many details here, but you'll figure it out!! Once you get the quilt sewn together, it is time to make it RAGGY! Take your scissors and snip little cuts into the showing seams.

Once you snip the seams, and be sure you have got them ALL, you wash the quilt. No I was advised that it is worth the money to take the quilt to the Wishy Washy to wash the first time, simply due to all the strings that come off. After washing mine in my own washer, I agree with this assessment. Add a teaspoon or so of salt the first time you wash it to keep the color in. Then get ready to pick off a bunch off your shirt the first few times you cuddle under it. But otherwise it is ver warm and cozy. Below you can see pictures of the one I made.