I am just a beginning to sew, so if I can do this, anyone can!!! I found this "How to Make a Rag Quilt From Start to Finish" by The Spruce Crafts, and it was easy to follow. Plus I had April right there with me only a text away (stupid COVID), and her help was invaluable!
I only did a few things different. Here's how I made mine.
Then I just continued to sew columns together.
First I found cotton Scooby Doo material at JoAnn's and I love it, just needed an excuse to use it!
After I decided on my Scooby Doo material I went back to JoAnn's and got coordinating cotton solids. I chose yellow, green, blue, and orange. I decided to make the back all blue. Of course being the anal engineer that I am, I had to create an excel spreadsheet to layout my quilt. This first one I decided to just do every other spot a Scooby Doo just alternating, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2,.... Then in the skipped squares I decided I wanted my solid colors to be on the diagonal.
Having this made it easy for me to know how many of each square I needed to cut. Each square is 12.5 inches - why - cause that's the size of the big acrylic square that I have! And having one of those and a rotary cutter making cutting the squares a breeze! I got the ARTEZA Acrylic Quilters Ruler & Non Slip Rings - Double-Colored Grid Lines (4.5"X4.5", 6"X6", 9.5"X9.5", 12.5"X12.5", Set of 4) from Amazon - the 12.5" & 9.5" squares are great sizes for bowl coozies.
So using my layout I knew I needed 4 yellow squares, 4 green, 4 orange, 40 blue (5 for front and 35 for back), 5 of Scooby Doo 1 (All the cartoon characters), 5 Scooby Doo 2 (White background), 4 of Scooby Doo 3 (Teal background with Mystery Machine), 4 of Scooby Doo 4 (Scooby Doo's in circles with the black background). With most of the material being 44 or so inches, you can get 3 with 13 inches of material - but of course I needed 4. I had originally bought a 1/2 yard - 18 inches - of each Scooby Doo - which isn't enough. I couldn't find more of the Scooby Doo's in the circles with the black background, but thankfully April had gotten some too and I was able to get my 4th square from her. All the others I was able to buy more of. So really you need to get 26" of each of the materials so you will have left overs - or add another pattern or two and only use 3 squares each and you won't have as much left over. For the back material you will need about 4 1/3 yards - that might be a little too much, but it's better to have too much then too little. ;)
Now the middle of the layer of the quilt. I used batting, but you could also use fleece. I think if you use fleece you can make your squares the same size as your cotton, but I used batting so my squares were smaller. I meant to make my squares 11.5 inches, but I mess up and made them 10.5 inches - which turned out to be a good thing - it gave me more material to "rag" around the squares and I think it looked better.
To be honest, making the back side of the quilt all one color I did for no particular reason, but in reality it really helped when sewing the quilt because it was easy to know what was the back side of my material.
So the first thing you do it cut all your material and batting into squares. Then you are ready to make your square sandwich to sew.
You place the right side of your fabric down on your surface. Then place a piece of batting in the middle. Then place a square from the back of your quilt on top with the right side facing up.
Think of it like an Oreo where the words of the cookie are facing out and the cream (or batting) is in the middle.
Now time to sew. Sew a straight stich (no need to back stich) from corner to corner so you end up with an X across your square. I would just build my fabric sandwiches and chain sew them. I did one diagonal on each, cut the chains apart and did the other diagonal to make the Xs on each. And don't worry if your squares are a little off - some of mine where a little more then a little - but that's OK because it will all get lost in the ragging.
After you finish sewing all your Xs on your sandwiches, you will have piles of quilted squares.
Now to start to sew. I used my pattern I made above to help keep me on track. I decided to sew down each column at first, then sew my columns together. To sew them together you put the back sides of the quilt together and have your front sides of the quilt facing out. Then I sewed about a 1 inch seam.
I conintued down my pattern column until I had a column complete. Here's the font and back sides.
Oh this picture is missing a Scooby Square - that was the piece I hadn't gotten from April at this time.
After all the columns are complete, now we start to sew two columns together at a time. I found it easiest to build like a long submarine sandwich (Am I hungry or what???). I placed the first column face down and put the second column face up on top - so the back side of my quilt is facing each other. then I used these little clips that I got from Amazon (MumCraft Multipurpose Sewing Clips with Tin Box Package, Assorted Colors, Pack of 100) to clip the seams laid out open and together. Then I placed clips in the middle of each square too.
My first two rows together:
Then I just continued to sew columns together.
After all columns were sewn together, I sewed all the way around the outside edge. Katie liked the new quilt right away. 😃
Then the more tedious part. Clip all the edges every 1/4 to 1/2 inch. It's a little less pain on your hands if you have spring release scissors. Once done, wash and dry. There will be plenty of thread strings. The more you wash the quilt, the more it will rag. My finished quilt was about 24" by 75".
And the back:
Here's a couple other pics:
I had so much fun making this quilt and I was so proud of myself that I wanted to make another one for a special great niece.
She LOVES Harry Potter, so this is her completed quilt - front and back.
Thanks for visiting and please let me know any comments or suggestions you have. Let me know if you have made rag quilts also.
Diane
