Rag quilt

Here's the rag quilt I made yesterday. I finally got the seams all clipped and got it washed. What a mess! I told my sister there was more rag quilt in the washer (in bits and pieces) than what I'd just put in the dryer.

This is going to a sweet little lady in the local nursing home. Caitlyn drew her name for the 'adopt a grandparent' program at school.



















Be sure you click on this lower picture so you can see the mess I still have to clean off of the flannel. Now multiply that by...oh, say 10,000, and that's what was in my washer. Next time, we're going to the laundry mat.















How I did it: Cut equal numbers of 6 x 6 blocks from old blue jeans and flannel. Sew the first square of flannel to a denim square (wrong sides together) with a 1 inch seam.* Next, take another denim and flannel square put them wrong sides together. Sew the two sets together with the denim on the outside. When you get it done it should look like, well two pieces of denim with the seam on the outside. Keep adding sets of squares until you get it as long as you want it. Start another strip and make it as long as the first one. Keep adding strips until it's as wide as you want it.

I made mine 6 blocks x 7 blocks which works out to a good lap size.

Now you want to go along and clip all of the seams so that they'll fray in the wash. Be sure you don't clip through your seam. This was the hard part. Cutting through two layers of denim and two layers of flannel was more than my poor hands could take in one sitting.

Throw it in the wash with a little detergent and fabric softener and let it do it's thing. Take it out and go outside and give it a good shake or two. Loads of little threads will fly! I popped mine in the dryer, but you could hang it out if you wanted.

Finally, clean all of the little threads off the flannel side and it's ready to use.

I hope these instructions are clear. If not, holler and I'll see if I can help. There are loads of places on the internet with instructions too.

* I messed this part up. I started out with a 1 inch and ended up doing a width of my presser foot seam. I'm going to have to fix a spot where it came loose in the wash.