Thursday, December 27, 2012

Starting a New Rag Quilt!

I love rag quilts!  Don't you?

I love them because they are cuddly and warm in the winter.

So, when the Studio Rags to Riches set went on sale I grabbed it.  It arrived this morning and I tore into the box and immediately marked my dies.

Next I pulled out my bags of batting bits.  You know when you you trim a quilt and you have strips of batting left-over that are just too big to throw out?  I have been throwing all of mine into a bag and storing them away.  Well, when my set came I decided to deal with the batting left-overs first to get it out of the way.

 

I used my dies to cut down the batting scraps into something usable - yey!  There are 3 rag batting dies; the small square, the rectangle and the large square to correspond to the rag dies.  I know have a bin of batting shapes ready to go for my next rag quilt!  Yey!  I love having bins of usable things instead of bags of yuck :-D

Now I know some of you will say - I don't like batting in my rag quilts because it makes them heavy.  I do like batting for a few reasons.  

  1. it stabilizes the blocks and gives them great body.  
  2. I get to use up my batting scraps that would otherwise be thrown out.
  3. it stabilizes the stitches so they don't pop
  4. this is what it looks like outside my quilting studio window right now

Yep.  Snowy and cold!  You can never have a quilt that is too warm for me :-D  Bring on the batting I say!

Do you like rag quilts too?  Do you put batting in them?

5 comments:

Marjorie's Busy Corner said...

Great idea with the dies!! I have made rag quilts...and I do use batt in them. I like it too!!

Jacqueline said...

I have only made one rag quilt and I used batting.. It is warm as a hug on a cold morning.

Material Girl said...

I have lots of flannel in my stash for rag quilts, but have only made one so far and I did put batting in it. I've heard of people using flannel in-place of batting, but haven't tried it yet.

Wonky Girl said...

I have made a rag quilt and plan to make another. I think at least a thin batting inside is better than none. At a guild meeting someone shared about rag quilts and said it is best to also sew double seams. An older quilt was passed around to show what happened after several washings- the seams had popped. So, I sewed my rag quilt "twice" for safety.
Cannot wait to see more of your quilt.

Gene Black said...

I have put batting in every rag quilt I have made.

2022 Christmas T-Shirt Quilt Gift

As promised - here is the T-Shirt Quilt Christmas Gift from 2022! I did share this on my Facebook page but not on my blog, (whoops sorry!) s...