Rag quilt tutorial

Ok, so here is my tutorial. I'm only going to do the first few steps because it's going to get long and probably confusing. Remember, this was my second project ever and I missed the day she taught this so I had to figure it out on my own. So, I might not do it the correct way and I don't know all the sewing lingo but hopefully you can still understand it.

1. You will want to choose at least two fabrics. My quilt is going to be eight squares by ten squares. For the first quilt I used a cotton for the top and a flannel for the back (I wanted the soft part to be on the baby). For this next quilt I'm using two flannels. You can do what you want but you probably don't want to mix the two textures on either side. This quilt I'm doing right now I am using three flannels--two patterns for the front and one solid for the back. So, for this quilt I need about two yards for the back and then one yard of each fabric for the front.

2. Cut your squares out. I need eighty squares for the front and the same number for the back. I am cutting them 6x6 but you can cut them whatever size you want depending on how big you want your blanket. Make sure you cut your selvage edge off so that all your pieces will fray. When you cut your squares you will want to make sure your fabric is folded in half because then you are cutting two at a time. Then you will have a bunch of long strips and those will need to be cut into squares. Make sure when you start cutting the squares that you cut from the open end, not the folded end. If you do this, your last square will be the folded end and you can open it up and it should be the same size as all your squares. If you make the picture bigger you can tell that is what I'm left with after I make the cut.



3. Now you will want to match your fabrics up. So, take your front piece and match it with your back piece with right sides out. Do that a second time with your next square and put them together. You should have four squares. For instance, mine looks like this: blue monster fabric, orange fabric, orange fabric, blue monster fabric. Sew the right-hand side edge by lining it up at the second groove on your throat plate (I think it's a 1/4 an inch). Make sure you do a reverse stitch when you start and stop. When you finish, it should like like this:



4. Repeat the above process until you have eight squares sewn together in a row (if you decide to do yours 8 squares by 10 squares). Now do it all again until you have two rows with eight squares each.

5. This is the tricky step. It's not really tricky but describing it might be hard for me. You should now have two rows done and you need to sew them together. You want your seams to match up because they will show on the back (mine are not lined up all the way in a few places--sorry Jen and Tana!). The best way to do this is to start lining them up in the middle and then go out. Pin the two rows together making sure that the seams from the top and bottom go in the opposite direction. So, the seam is going to make a lower case t (or if you are Mike, half of an infinity sign). If you lay them all the same direction it will be difficult to go through your machine. If this is confusing, sorry. It should look like so:

6 . Now you want to do this same thing eight more times until you have all your rows sewn together. (P.S. How do you like that double chin?)

Ok, this is the main tutorial and when this is done, there isn't much left to do. But, when I get my rows sewn, I'll finish the tutorial. I hope this wasn't too confusing.