My First Rag Quilt: Part 1

Okay, so the pictures are backwards... But I'll go through my steps.

I cut the squares 6x6 cause that's what worked with my blankets.

I folded the blankets in 1/2 so they'd already be wrong side touching and ready to sew.

After all the squares were cut out, I laid them out on the floor to get the pattern for the blanket I wanted... Then I staggered them on top of each other... That's what you'll see in the last picture.

Then I sewed a square around each square, just simple straight stitch, with a 1/2 inch seam. (the 3rd pic from the bottom!)

Then you start sewing squares together by laying one on top of the other and sewing along with a 1/2 inch seam. (3rd pic from top!)

This is what a finished row looks like (2nd pic from top)

Once you have your rows done, you start sewing them together. A little trick I learned is that you have to iron your edges down going opposite directions... The top row you iron going left, the bottom row you iron going right.

Then you lay them together with the backsides touching (sides without edges out)

You want the edges to be going opposite directions so when you sew, you don't have 12 sheets of fabric going through at once, you only have 8 at a time at the most. make sense?

I'll try to take a picture of that next to make sure you get what I mean.

So far, these two rows are all I've done, but Maddie won't let them go. She's so excited to have a blanket that mommy is making. :) It completely makes this little project worth it!

Oh, and It's going by so fast, I'm sure if you had an uninterrupted afternoon to make one in, it'd take just a couple hours! But I'm doing it bit by bit. Maybe I can get a few more rows done tonight... who knows. Between being sick myself, sick kids and a sick husband, I'm fitting it in when I can.

But yeah... I'm excited. Can't wait til it's done.