Design Wall Monday

There was a change in the order that I worked on projects this past weekend. I was going to use the rag quilt as a leader and ender project, but because of the size of blocks I used and the fact that I would have had to change the thread each time I sewed one of these, it was going to a pain. So I just made the rag quilt by itself. Here it is after the first washing.

I always wash these at least two times (usually three times) before giving them away. After the first washing, I trim off long loose threads, clean up the back (which always has lots of stray threads on it when I use flannel instead of homespuns), and check for any seams that may have accidentally been snipped open.

I like the rectangular blocks. Besides being much quicker to make, I just like how it looks. I often quilt something other than just an X through the rectangles, but this time that's all I did.

I always add an extra couple strips of fabric to the outside edge to all my rag quilts. (This time I chose a light-colored piece of homespun to frame the quilt. I think it looks like a binding, which I like.) Without doing that, I feel like the edge is too raggedy looking. All other seams have four pieces of fabric coming together to create a nice thick, chenille-like finish. On the outside (without my additional trim), there would only be two, and I think it would look "thin" and cheap.

After shrinking up, this quilt measures about 62" x 80". 

I'm back to working on the Disappearing Nine Patch and finding suitable borders for the scrappy Nine Patch quilts I showed in previous posts.

What are you working on today?

Check out Judy L's Patchwork Times

and

Monday Making