I had seen a really cute idea on Amanda's blog (here) to do a rag quilt, but was skeptical that I'd actually be able to do this. The only time I have sewn something was back in Home Econ in 7th & 8th grade. My sewing machine was still in the box from xmas...so I figured I didn't have much to lose and would take a stab at making a really small baby blanket. And at least if it didn't turn out well, it's not like a baby is going to be too picky!
I looked up some instructions on the internet, but ultimately just kinda made it up as I went. The instructions I saw all called for the cotton squares on the front and back of the quilt, but you'll see that I just did the front like that and used soft minky baby fabric for the back.
First step was to go to the fabric store and pick a few items up. Luckily for me, they had a bundle of blue/orange/brown fabrics already cut to about 6x6...so I bought those since would save me the initial step of cutting down my fabric into squares. It came in a pack of 20 squares and ended up being a perfect little size. I also bought some white minky fabric for the back just because I LOVE how soft it is...it just oozes baby when you see and feel it!
1. Design your layout.
First I arranged the squares on our coffee table with 4 squares across each row and 5 columns high...then after way too much thinking/consideration, ended up with a pattern I was pleased with.
2. Pin and Sew Squares to form Rows
I used pins to pin the 4 fabric squares of each row together. I pinned at least 1 inch from the edge.
I sewed the pinned seams together to form a row. I tried to sew about a half inch from the edge.
Repeat this for all of your rows.
3. Pin and Sew Rows to form columns
Now it is time to pin 2 rows together and sew them. I started with my bottom 2 rows and just kept working my way up....pinning and sewing. At this point my blanket looked pretty bad, but trust me that even if you sewed crooked or however, it will probably look fine. Just sew over seams however you want-- you'll end up cutting these anyways, so it really does not matter- you can see how caddy-wompous some of mine looked.
4. Wash blanket
At this point, your entire front should be sewn together and somewhat look like a blanket. I washed and dried my blanket at this point so that it would shrink to size since it was cotton and I was using minky for the back, which most likely would not shrink. The edges will start to fray a tad.
5. Cut, pin, sew backing
I then cut a piece of the minkey fabric just slightly larger than the blanket and pinned on the back of the blanket. I had read to pin this very well cause he fabric is soft and moves around very easily. I sewed about a half inch from the edge around the whole perimeter of the blanket. This was very difficult for me to sew this straight and have it look good, so my advice would be to take it very slow here. I also learned afterwards that I could have used white thread in my bobbin, which would have looked better on my minky backing and not shown how crooked I sewed.
I then trimmed the backing so that it was slightly smaller than the size of my blanket. I probably could have avoided this step by cutting the minky to the correct size to start with :)
6. Rag the quilt
This was the most excruciating step-- with a good pair of scissors, cut slits in every single seam so that it will fray better. I made my slits probably 1/4 inch. You can also buy a tool at the fabric store to snip these cuts which probably works a lot easier.
Wash several times to fray and you are done!
