Showing posts with label vintage sheet rag quilt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vintage sheet rag quilt. Show all posts

Friday, April 01, 2016

Q1 Finish Along

I just linked up my finishes for the first quarter. 
 I got all but 2 of my proposed projects actually finished!  
Plus I completed one that was not on the list.  
Pretty good, I think. 
 I will review those finishes here just in case you are interested. 
 From January 1st to today.  
These are just the ones from the Finish Along, I have had a few others too.

Vintage sheet rag quilt


Chenille blanket


Baby Pinwheels


Dreamy Stars


Amy and Matt's wedding quilt


 Here are the finishes that were not included in the Finish Along 
(I can't show 1 as it is for a swap)

This is a pouch from the free tutorial on the blog of Lori Holt.  
I substituted a cat face for the flower.


My "Jack" pin cushion


If you have not joined in the Finish Along you should consider joining next quarter. 
 It was certainly motivational for me!  Link is on my side bar.  
Q2 begins on April 8th.  

~XOP~


Tuesday, January 12, 2016

First Finish of 2016 and A Short Tutorial

That's right, I have one finish so far. 
 I finished that rag quilt that I was making with vintage sheets.

This is a photo of the finished front.


And this is a photo of the finished back.


If you have not made a rag style quilt before you should.  
They are super easy and make great baby quilts!  
I think having one for a winter snuggle would be great too.  
They make good blankets to take to cold football games too.  

I had tons of batting scraps I wanted out of my closet so this is what I chose to do with them.
  I cut them into 4" squares.  
You, of course can cut them any size you like.  
I wanted to use 5" charm squares of my vintage sheets.  
You need your batting square to be 1" smaller than the fabric you are using.  
First thing to do is sandwich you batting between the 2 wrong sides of the fabric you are using.  
If your squares are larger than 5" you may want to spray baste them to avoid slippage.  
I also use my walking foot to make this quilt.  Stitch an "X" on each sandwich.

Here you can see mine all stacked up with the "X" stitched on them.  
You may chain piece this part.
That sure makes it go more quickly!


It is easiest to use your walking foot to assemble the quilt too. 
Once you have all the "X"'s sewn on the squares you sew them together like you see here.
I used 1/2" seams to sew everything together.
One side of the quilt will have all the seams up as you see in this photo.


The back side of the rows will look like this, more like a typical quilt looks


Once you have sewn your rows, then sew them together, matching the intersections as you do.


You are now ready to do the very tedious part, snipping all the upturned seams. 
 I use a spring loaded, short bladed scissors to help my hands out a little bit. 

 It is good to do while watching TV as it is pretty mindless. 
 Make sure you snip about 3/8" apart. 
 A little smaller or larger is no biggie, the only big no no is not to snip into the sewn seam!  
Then your quilt would come apart! 
 If you do that (and I think we all know most of us will at some point) 
take it back to your machine and stitch it back up a bit. 
 If you are not near the machine put a piece of painters tape on the spot 
so you can find it when you are.  

I would say a pin, but I always seem to lose them and then I have 

A) lost my pin and 
                  B) don't know where to stitch!
Both are not good!. 

 Don't forget you need to sew all the way around the outside of the quilt and snip that line too!!!  


Close up of my snipped quilt.  Isn't that bird adorable?


I also loved those butterflies!



It is a technique that can be used with quilting cotton or flannel.  
Flannel makes one HEAVY quilt, but so nice for winter.  

One you have the entire quilt snipped you will throw it into the washer and then the dryer. 
 It will fray/fuzz a bit more when you do and that's exactly what you want it to do. 
 I find that the more snipping, the better the fuzzing, 
so keep that in mind for the look you are going for.  
This is the first time I have used vintage sheets and 
they did not fuzz as much as regular fabric or flannel, but I like it just as much!

I hope you have enjoyed my little tutorial and that you decide to give this technique a try.  
If you do I would love to see your pictures!

Have a wonderful day!

Linking to Finish along here
See my original list here

~XOP~


Friday, January 08, 2016

A few More Projects

I have been working on a couple more things too. 
 In the spirit of moving forward with UFO's I hauled out my older Dream On stars quilt.  
It only needed the binding done.  I had to make the binding and attach it.

I had that green vintage sheet just begging to be made into binding for this beauty.  
Bonus that I only needed 5 strips for the entire quilt!  
Now comes the task of hand sewing the binding down.  I'm working on it.  

This will be included in my Finish Along group.


I cut up a TON of old batting scraps to use for making rag quilts.  
If you happen to have old charm or layer cake squares you don't need or no longer want,
 I would happily take them!  
I know I usually end up with a few left over squares that I don't end up using in the project.  
They typically end up in my scrap bin.  
Well, feel free to mail them off to me!  I need 12" squares, 10" squares and 5" squares.  
I don't really want to take the time to cut a ton of these.  
So if you want to clear some out, email me at mamaspark@gmail.com and 
I will give you my mailing address.  
I have enough of my own fabric that I can cut up, but if they are already cut, 
you know it will go that much more quickly!  

I did take the bull by the horns and cut up a bunch more of my vintage sheets to make 
198 squares for one of the sets of batting I have cut out. 
 I put them all together and sewed the "X" across the squares.  
All that's left is to sew these together and voila, a rag quilt in the making.  
Then all that snipping, Oi!


I will be listing this in my finish along post too.

I am excited to be able to bust out some new WIP's and finish up some older ones.

Will you be joining me??

~XOP~