Fringe Quilt

I saw a quilt in a shop in Mountain View, Arkansas that I really liked. The woman told me it's called a "fringe quilt" and is really easy to make. I am so annoyed when someone says it's easy, and yeah, that's because they've been doing it for years and have all the appropriate tools?! After we got back from vacation, I Googled "fringe quilt" and found out that the more common name is "rag quilt". I searched many a website and tutorial, and decided the woman was right, it is easy. Or at least easy enough for me to give it a try. I learned to sew as a young girl and at one time had to sew all my own clothes and even worked in a dry cleaners doing tailoring. This is a very forgiving sewing project. Your seams do not need to be even and/or straight.

The big thing on this quilt are the edges. The raw edges are allowed to fray and it looks like fringe. I just really like the look. Most examples are quilts made from squares, but then I saw a new style on Etsy. The quilt was made of strips of fabric. This saves a tremendous amount of time spent cutting and sewing. The added plus is that it looks a bit more "hip" rather than the traditional squares. Although the hipness factor may have more to do with the selected fabric. I finally settled on the style and found a tutorial.

There is plenty of math for this project. You must decide what size quilt you want to end up with, how wide the strips will be, or the size of the squares, plus the one inch of seam allowances. I was planning on a lap quilt to put over the back of my love seat, so 42 by 45 or so would work just fine. This is exactly the dimensions of the tutorial I used, so much of the math was already done for me. I LOVE that when it all works out.

The best fabric for this project is flannel. You can use plenty of other fabrics, but flannel "rags" the best. I used cotton because the selection was better for what I was doing and I'm pleased, but I'm pretty sure there's going to be plenty of "stuff" flying around for some time.

You can make this with the standard foot that comes with every sewing machine, but.......I HIGHLY recommend purchasing and using a "walking foot". Your sewing machine has "feed dogs" on the bottom plate that moves the fabric along. A "walking foot" moves the fabric on the top and bottom. You want this when you have three layers of fabric. I have been sewing for decades and had never heard of this until my friend, Teresa, who is the knower of all things pertaining to sewing, crafting, and wine told me about it. Actually, when she heard me lamenting while making a hand-tied quilt that my fabric was puckering, etc. she had me come over to her house for help. Teresa owns and uses 5 sewing machines, she's serious about her sewing, quilting, etc. She said she wanted to put the walking foot on, I asked what that was, and she looked at me in shock and kindly explained that I NEEDED one. And once again, she is spot on. We all need a friend like Teresa. And if you are going to use your machine for crafting and quilting you need a walking foot. Mine cost about $55.

Some of you will be thrilled and have loads of fun selecting the fabric. I found it very difficult to purchase my fabric. I'm not confident about buying different colors and patterns to work together. My helper in all things of this nature just gave birth so she was not available to help. This caused me much stress and anxiety, but I muddled through.

While I was waiting at the counter to have all my fabric cut, I noticed they were using this tool to sharpen their scissors. I asked if it really worked and they said "YES", it makes their scissors last at least 18 months. Which considering how much fabric they cut, it should work for me just fine. I even had a 50% off coupon that I used to purchase this. I LOVE that when it happens.
I got home with my 2 yards of white flannel and 1/2 yard of seven different fabrics, all on sale. I was ready to get started and I did not wash and iron the fabric first. In fact, you do not want to wash it first. So I pulled out the huge cutting board and laid out the white flannel while it was still folded in half. I used a long ruler and a lead pencil to draw my lines for cutting. If you're going to do many of these, I highly recommend purchasing a self-healing mat, rotary cutter, and large plastic ruler. I ended up at Teresa's and used her tools for my next project....WAY faster than the way I did this blanket.

I made "sandwiches" of the strips. The cotton fabric is on the outside (right side out) with the white flannel in between.

Here it is all laid out and ready to sew. This took some time since I was using 7 very different fabrics that didn't all look good next to one another. Plus, I just make a big deal out of this kind of stuff. Now just sew a straight stitch joining each sandwich together with the next sandwich, with a 1/2 inch seam allowance. For the stitch length setting, I figured I'd use a short length since I was going to be snipping the edges. This quilt gets heavy, so with 14 strips, I sewed 7 together on one half and then the other 7 together on the other half. Then I combined the two halves. When all the strips are sewn together, I decided to have a fringe border around the edge rather then binding it. This means I simply sewed a straight seam all along the outside of the blanket.

Here's a close-up of the quilt all sewn up. I should have taken a photo of the other side, it looks like a nicely sewn blanket of strips. You might notice that some of the strips have stitching down the middle. Some of the tutorials suggested doing this. As I was sewing down the middle, I figured that I was going to need to change my thread and bobbin because the brown was just not going to work on all the fabric colors. I don't like doing that, so I decided to leave some of them without the stitching down the middle. The strips are really not that wide, the flannel holds the layers in place, plus I pinned the strips together before stitching. I think that the stitching down the middle is not necessary.

I lined up the strips on one side, leaving the other side very different. The fabrics are not all the same length. This just means that after I stitched up the side, I had to trim the edges to even them up.

This is the quilt all sewn and ready to "fringe"

I used my new spring loaded scissors to snip about every 1/4 inch. I STRONGLY suggest that you purchase a pair before you try this, your hand will thank you. I tried to cut through all at once, but it doesn't work. I needed to snip up one side and then down the other side. With two layers of cotton fabric and the flannel in between, that's about all the scissors can handle. It's a good idea to break this up over a couple of days, otherwise your hand might get very sore.

After snipping all the edges, I threw the quilt in the washing machine and then the dryer. You want to do this all by itself. Really. Do not wash anything else at the same time, it will end up a mess with fuzz everywhere. Some people suggest taking it to a laundromat, but I did not find that necessary.

Ta Da! The finished product!

Here's a close up. The edges will continue to "rag" each time it goes through the laundry. You can see there is still plenty of "stuff" left on the quilt. I could have also taken a photo of my black shirt, then you could really see all the "stuff" that's still coming off of the quilt.

I'm really happy with this quilt. I've already cut out the next one. I confess that this was a trial run before I make my grandson's cowboy themed quilt. I'm going with the square pattern for that one. Stay tuned because I'm sure I'll blog that one too. It won't be as long....promise.