Hannah's Birthday Rag Quilt

This project started with some polar fleece fabric that I had purchased about a year ago because it was on sale.  I had gone to the fabric store trying to think of a project that was different so I started to stroll outside of the quilting cotton section and ended up at the back corner with the giant bolts of fleece.  Joann fabrics often has good sales and this was a 50% off sale.  At the time there were a few nieces of mine expecting babies so I bought a few girly colors and set them aside.  The babies ended up being boys so into the fabric stash the fleece went.  Then a few weeks back we were shopping for a birthday gift for my son's friend Hannah's 7th birthday and the light bulb went on over my head and I remembered the fleece was still in my bin.  I had always wanted to try a quick rag quilt and thought these two colors would compliment each other nicely.

A rag quilt is a good project for beginners or if you are short on time as they come together very quickly and require no basting or quilting.  Most fleece bolts come in 60 inch widths so a little yardage goes a long way.  This project was for a full sized bed and unlike a traditional quilt that you want to have hang over the sides of the bed enough to cover the sides of the mattress this type of quilt is fun to make as a throw blanket or a bed topper.  So first step was to decide on sizes for my squares and cut them out from each of the two fabrics.  Since the fabric is so wide and would be difficult to cut if folded two times due to the 4 layers of a very thick fleece I had to be creative when cutting.

This method works well for me.  I lay wider fabrics on one of my larger cutting mats and establish a straight side.

Then using my 12 x 12 cutting square as a guide I place my 24 inch ruler against that for my straight cut line for my cutting wheel.  The trick here is to not allow the longer ruler to leave the fabric until the cut is across the entire width of the piece.  To do that I remove the 12 x 12 while making my cut.  I then replace the 12 X 12 and slide the long ruler along that until it extends to the other side of the fabric, I then finish the cut.

 The cutting here is very quick, strips of fleece, then into squares.  Another thing to know is that there is single sided and double sided fleece.  When you create a rag quilt from a fabric like cotton or even flannel you would create your squares with a front and a back fabric and sometimes, depending on the thickness of the flannel you may even choose to line it with more flannel or batting like a traditional 'quilt sandwich'.  However, with fleece you already have such a thick warm fabric that there really is no need to do that.

If you have a double sided fleece then it is as soft and fuzzy on one side as the other.  However, you also want to be aware that there is a slight difference between the front and back of the fabric.  It's difficult to see if you don't look closely, but if you make a mistake and don't keep the front fabrics to the front of your work it will stick out in the finished product.  Here's an example of the fabric that I have with a printed design, I've folded over the fabric so you can see the back.  It's just slightly less plush, I was careful to keep my cut squares oriented the same way to avoid making this mistake.

The noticeable difference in making a rag quilt vs any other traditionally pieced quilts is the seam in this type of project is exposed.  I chose a seam allowance of 1 inch here and when assembled the seams can get a bit crowded.  If you choose to make your rag quilt from cotton or flannel that has a liner or batting you would potentially have three layers of fabric as your seam which can get a bit bulky.  This bulk is fine and will help to give the quilt the special look that makes it a rag quilt. 

Although the style of this quilt is a bit forgiving it is important to be precise in your seam allowances and square intersections as variations will show on the back of the project.  Once you've got all your squares together the next step is to cut the seams.  I use a spring loaded scissor for this part of the project so that my hand wouldn't hurt from all the cutting.  This is my sewing machine scissor that sits next to me all the time and I love it.. it really gives my hand a break as I tend to have numbness and pain in my fingers and hands.  The cuts should be in approx 1/2 inch intervals along all seams.  Keep to approx 1/8 inch away from any stitched seam to avoid creating a hole in your finished work.  As you can see near the edge I cut away about an inch and a half to create the fringe around the edge when the cutting in the middle is complete.

In a project of this size there is a lot of cutting that needs to be done.  I tried to stay roughly the same size although since you are eventually going to toss this into the laundry so that the seams can get fluffy and frayed looking it isn't going to make much of a difference if they aren't all exactly 1/2 inch.  Once completely cut the last step before tossing it into the washing machine is to secure the outside edge with one stitch all around the project and then to cut the same fringe style cuts around the entire project.

Edge 'fringe'

The finished project.  Hopefully it fits well as a bed quilt or as a fun throw blanket.  Seems like soft fabric a 7 year old girl might enjoy.

What's Old is New Again... Part 1

I suppose for most of us quilters [or I assume for any crafter] it is very rewarding when we create something that others enjoy, that people find comforting or appealing.  For me, I love seeing photos after I present a quilt to someone that shows the person actually using the quilt on their sofa, or on their bed, or wrapping their baby up in it, it's satisfying to me.  It feels like the person using the quilt is the true last step in creating it.  For me I hope that the time, care and love that I put into planning and preparing a quilt project for a person comes through in the final result.

I've currently got a project on my table that is very different than any of the others I've worked on because I didn't actually piece this one together.  This project comes to me as a repair.  One of our Salem Christian School friends has within their family a quilt that was given to them years ago as a gift.  From what I understand it was a wedding gift and that tells me that it lasted through years of growing a family.  It holds a considerable amount of sentimental value and for that reason they'd like it preserved.  I am honored that they'd entrust me with this project and even more excited to be able to give it back to them when it is complete knowing that it will last and be able to be enjoyed for them for a long time.  I'm happy to preserve this project and hopefully with it the care and loving detail that the person who put it together had in mind for this family.

Quilts, to me, are so comforting.  They get worn and torn like a favorite pair of blue jeans.  While I'm working on it I can just imagine this family growing up wrapped up in this quilt.  Wrapped up in the affection that someone had intended to sew right into it.  That's just the feeling I get with this quilt.  If this quilt could talk it would most likely tell of movie nights on the sofa, afternoon naps, babies being born, kids growing up and memories this family has, all wrapped up into this one quilt.

I know what you're thinking... 'sounds a bit sappy and dramatic', yeah I know.  However, if I didn't feel strongly about it, why would I bother to do it?  Needless to say... I'm taking my time and care in this repair project.  I figure I'd dedicate two blog pages to this project.. this one chronicling the repairs and the next, the finished result.  The funny thing is that my sister, a professional fabricator of custom window treatments, gets repair requests all the time.  When I told her that I was working on this project her reaction wasn't as positive and up-beat as mine.  She warning me that you never know what you'll find when you open up a project that you didn't create... I took that as a challenge.  Somewhat of a quilt layer treasure hunt and pressed on.

The subject... a small Ohio Star quilt.  I’m not sure if you can tell by these photos but it's a tied quilt.  With many tied projects, that in itself starts the problematic points of this quilt.  I'm simply not a big fan of tied quilts, there's a lot riding on those little tied spots. 

 

The quilt is bound with a separate binding strip which will make finishing a bit easier for me as I don't need to rely on the backing being the exact size and shape once all is back together... there's a tiny bit of fudge factor with a quilt that is bound in this fashion.  In this method the binding strip is attached to both sides evenly as opposed to the backing fabric needing to extend past the size of the front fabric and fold over the edges.  I've taken care to preserve the binding for re-assembling this project after it is quilted.  Most likely it will be too long when that occurs because I do intend to finish this with a combination of quilting and tying and machine quilting shortens a quilt a tiny bit.  The retying is mostly so the project maintains more of its original look and handmade charm.

As you can see from this photo, a bit of a closer shot of the center of the Ohio Star block, this is where the quilt was tied.  Some of the ties extend to the back of the project, others did not adding to the structural issues that the quilt had with the batting sagging in the middle of the three quilt layers.  Once I opened the layers up I could clearly see why the crafter had troubles tying through in all spots.

A major issue that this quilt had can be seen in this photo, the ties on this project are spaced 14 inches or more apart.  Before taking the project apart I had assumed a high-loft poly batting was waiting for me inside, I guessed that from the 'fluffiness' of the overall quilt.    High-loft batting is usually very loosely woven together and requires a 4" to 6" spacing between quilting or ties.  A combination of the spacing being too far apart and what as used for batting was what caused all the sagging over the years.  I was also completely wrong in my estimate of what type of batting that was inside, in fact, there was no batting to speak of.  The crafter had used a woven cotton blanket inside this quilt that didn’t stand a chance with ties so far apart.  That discovery also answered my question as to why this quilt, for such a small size was so heavy.  The family likes the fluffy loft of this quilt, so I have chosen a very high loft batting when re-assembling that is also the type used when making sleeping bags.  Hopefully that will give them the fluffy and warm feeling that they remember, without the weight and bulk of the old material.

Now for the repairs.  Once I had pulled the quilt apart I set aside the backing and binding and could really get into repairing any problem spots.  There was one obvious tear when I first looked at it and I was able to discover 3 others throughout the project by inspecting each seam for a total of 4 spots that needed repair.  Two of the tears were large and two were just the beginnings of seams that were starting to fray.  These tears sometimes happen when a 1/4 seam allowance is not observed throughout or in long seams that may pull from the inside.  The two worse tears I was able fix with the least obvious looking repair method while the other two I had no other option but to over-stitch them.  The over-stitched repairs are visible, however I think I chose a thread that matches well and they are in a location where the stitches can blend in.



Before Repair



In the torn spots that I could repair from the back of the seams I was able to re-sew a new seam by borrowing just enough seam allowance from an adjoining pieced shape.  With this spot, the largest tear, I was lucky that I was able to pull in enough of the seam from the 'flying geese' [the three piece triangle shape] without making the overall line of the darker color square look distorted.  It's not ironed yet in this photo because it's still lying over my work area, but once that's ironed flat it will blend right in.





After Repair

With this smaller spot I wasn't as lucky as the larger as there really wasn't much fabric to borrow in order to re-sew this seam.  As a result I had to be a bit creative and the overall shape of the flying geese is lost a bit but the block, I feel, is busy enough that it won't be noticed.



Before Repair

 

After Repair



 Here you get a bit of a different view of the repair.  The shape itself is a bit distorted, but it was necessary to gain enough seam to repair the tear. 

The next two spots are small so I've pointed them out by inserting my wooden pointer.  They were both approximately a half inch each.  Probably not a big deal if I were to leave them that way.  However over time the entire triangle would be damaged as the tears are on either side of the same shape and when that happens the only way to repair it would be replace the whole triangle by appliquéing a new fabric piece over it.  I much rather repair these small holes now and save the future repair of finding suitable fabric to match and patch the whole shape.

For this repair I over-stitched using a zig zag stitch in a thread color that should blend in fairly well.  It looks a bit obvious up close, however when I back the camera up even a foot away from the block you can already see how it will blend in.  On my own quilts that need repair, this is usually how I repair them.  Mostly because I don't take them apart and don't have the option of fixing a seam from inside or back of the quilt top.  The quilt that I created for my son's bed tends to get a lot of tears in it and has a lot of these  'Frankenstein-esc' repair spots on it.  I simply tell him that I'm sewing up the holes so the love doesn't spill out.  It's not the prettiest repair, but it gets the job done.

Last thing I’ve done which isn’t really a ‘repair’ per se` is to ‘clean up’ the back of the quilt top a bit.  All those years of washing and sagging quilt layers had made quite a mess of the pieced seams.  I’ve removed any loose threads and neatened up a few seams that were a bit ragged.

Next step for this quilt is to get it put back together.  This one will be machine quilted in a meandering style using large circular shapes with the long arm machine on the quilt frame.  Once quilted, I’ll go back and retie the centers of the Ohio Star blocks and then add back the type of ribbon that had been used when the quilt was first assembled.  Lastly the binding will go back on and the project will be complete.. again.  Stay tuned...