Kandice faith- birthday/christmas gifts 9/9/13

So since about a week before her birthday I began making a few things for her (middle of June) . I had recently gotten out my sewing machine… It had been sitting in my parents garage since I received it from my in-laws last July for my birthday. 

My goal was to make her a rag blanket… well the only rag blanket I had made was out of flannel and I knew that would be way to warm for South Carolina weather so I began researching if it would work with regular cotton and it appeared it would be fine so off I went to the fabric store.

 

Here is what I found. I wanted something that was girlie but something she could have forever if she wanted it.  She is also in a full size bed already so I wanted to at least make a full size quilt…. who knew the amount of fabric…. plus I made the mistake of making my squares only 5.5 inches…. I should have done around 9 inches….

This because a HUGE project so I made it her birthday/christmas gift!! Lots of love put into it, along with a bit of money ;-)

In the next 3 pictures I have all my squares getting cut, then cutting batting to fit in between, THEN putting X’s through each 1 (layered 1 piece of fabric, then batting (about an inch less wide/long then the fabric) then another piece of fabric)  After ALL these squares were done… I think it was around 300…. I began laying them out to make each row….

Now it was time to sew each row together. I did 15 squares across. Here is all 21 rows that I had finally finished… ( in the end, even with all my measurements, it was too long so I made it 18 squares down and 15 squares across, 270 squares!!!!)  

The blue stickey notes were how I kept the rows straight and from which end to start sewing as I went along… I almost had a remove a few rows and start again because I started sewing the wrong ends together…. This is also how the back side of my quilt looks. If you aren’t familiar with rag quilts the back side looks like a regular quilt and the front has frills around each square… 

The final product after sewing… then starts the all consuming snipping… You need to snip around each edge about every 1/4 inch before you wash it to get the frayed/fringed look… Here we go….

Then all you do is wash it… I took it to the laundry mat because a lot of fuzz/bits of fabric come off and its not all that great for a regular washer and dryer. The final product turned out AMAZING!!! I LOVE it and I cannot wait for her to get it on her bed. 

Because of having so much fabric left over I have also bade a pillow case, dolly blanket and dolly pillow for her. I think she is going to love it… Even though its now 2.5 months after her birthday :-)
AUNTIE LOVES YOU KANDICE FAITH!!! 

Here is the pillow case. I just took an old white pillow case and used it for the back, cut it in half and layered it so that its like a pillow shame :-)

And here is the final of the dolly things :-)