My Raggy Quilt tutorial

I know it took awhile, but it's finally finished!  I've been so sick the past couple weeks and especially today that it has been slow going.  Not to mention I have been participating in a huge Quilter's Blog Hop instead of clipping seams.  And I have a work space that is roughly the size of a TV tray. 

I am so excited about the quilt being finished that I can't sleep so I decided to post instead.  

I hope you read the last post and have your supplies already, I am so sorry that it took me so long, but the waiting is over!

The charm packs I chose were Moda Winter Wonderland.  I used 15 charm packs total.  I have enough left over for a fantastic tree skirt that I want to make.  It will match but not be raggy.  

 These are the fabric numbers.

If you purchased the charm packs you have no need to cut your fabrics since they are pre-cut.  

You will, however, have to cut your Warm and Natural or Warm and White if you prefer.  

I said that I prefer the Warm and Natural in my last post, but I didn't say why.  I prefer it because you don't have to quilt very close, (you can leave up to 9'' between your stitches) and also because I have seen a picture of a quilt dried in the clothes dryer that has scorched because of using the 'cheaper' so-called natural batting.  It is needle punched and won't pill or bunch.  (Nope, they aren't paying me to plug their product!)

You will need to cut your batting into 4'' squares.  You can use a rotary cutter, or just mark the lines with your ruler and a marker and cut a couple layers at a time with scissors.  My cutter was a little dull the last time I used it and I just went the 'cheating' route and marked about 40 squares at a time.

 I inherited this awesome ruler from my mother who has had it as long as I can remember.

That is why so many of the lines are worn in places, but it's a link and I wouldn't trade it. :)

After I cut my batting out, I set it and the charm squares in a convenient way on my table so that 

I could do them assembly-line style.  I think the next few pictures are pretty self-explanatory.

 First layer goes down upside down.  

 I set my charm square packs out 2 at a time so I can have both 

front and back fabric the same on each square.

  Center your 4'' batting square on top and place next square on top of it.

I pin at mid section and corner and just stack them until I have 

them all ready to chain sew.

 Stitch from one corner across the square to the next and I fed the corner WITHOUT 

the pin in first.  I tried it pin first a couple times and this worked better.

 Picture from the back of my machine.  That's my walking foot which I found to 

be easier on me when doing this.

 Stack of squares with the first line on from corner to corner.

 Fully prepared stack below after 2nd corner to corner.

Next step is to assemble your strips you will use a 1/2 inch seam allowance instead of the 1/4 inch that is normally used for quilting.  I got the strips ready to stitch by pinning them together in a somewhat random, but not repeating order.  You could choose to make them patterned somehow, but the randomness called to me.

And here are my strips.  Make sure that you back stitch a few stitches at

the beginning and the end of each pair of squares so you don't have to tie a million knots.

At the beginning and end of each row as you add to your quilt you want to

also make sure that you take several backstitches.

 And be sure to stitch with your seams OPEN instead of turned either way.

Last row to add and getting ready to clip! 

Clip your stitches at least an 1/8 of an inch from your seams.  

You absolutely do not want to chance clipping your stitches. 

Nearly finished.

 Finished and washed.  It ravels so nicely and I just love how warm and soft it is.

I'm not sure why that snowflake square looks like that, it's the flash, I suppose.

It's a good thing I'm not calling this a photography blog.  lol

 A larger picture.  This is a quarter section of my finished quilt.

Here is a picture of the back of it.  It's all smooth because the seams are on the front.