This is a BIG blog post about making kids raggy quilts... that is the kids make them for themselves. The kids featured in this tutorial are aged between 7 and 10 :)
To make a lap sized quilt you need approx 2.5-3 yards of quilt fabric for the top (for example 5 half yard cuts of co-ordinating quilters cottons) and 3 yards of flanellette (brushed cotton) for the backing fabric. But if you want to make it an even cheaper project use flanellette for both the front and back of the quilt.
This quilt does not have wadding in it, and this is what makes it such a simple project for kids. However, because it has no wadding, its important to use flanellette for the backing of this quilt (and the front if you want), to give it a bit of snuggliness and help rag up the seams.
Two of the kids in my turotial are cutting a selection of quilters cottons into 9" squares. To mark the fabric cut a 9" template from cardboard or template plastic and have the child draw around the template directly onto the fabric with tailors chalk. You can see matilda's chalk grid on the blue fabric and now she is cutting out the fabric squares with a pair od scissors. This method means children can avoid using a rotary cutter, which is dangerous for them, not to mention quite hard for them to manage anyway.
NOTE- for young novice sewers its quite important to build this quilt from LARGE squares of fabric (9" plus). This is so that the quilt can be quilt quickly with a fairly minimal amount of sewing. The idea is for them to feel really proud of themselves for completing a 'big' quilt and build confidence rather that turn out a really intricate creation.
Use the same method to cut out the backing fabric (flanellette) into squares. I hope this doesnt confuse you because of the 'note' i just wrote above, but one of my children is not a novice sewer and decided to make her raggy quilt using some 5" denim charms I had stashed away. She is cutting her flanellette backing fabric into 5" squares, but still used the cardboard template and scissors method.
Once all the squares are cut out the fabric for the quilt top needs to me marked with chalk lines accross the diagional. Matilda is using my large quilt ruler (which you can just see under her left hand) and some taylors chalk.
Of course being only 7 she isnt expected to be perfect at handling such a big ruler etc and as you can see the chalk lines are a bit wonky. This is fine. This quilt method is very forgiving.
Once all the fabric for the quilt top has been marked with chalk its time to sew. Take one square of 'top' fabric and one square of 'botton' fabric and place them together so that the wrongs sides are touching. Use 4 pins to secure the squares to each other. Place the pincs right in the middle of each triangle shape, well away from your chalk lines. Using your diagional chalk lines as a guide have the child stitch across each square. There is no need to back stitch to secure the threads. Just stitch in a nice straight line following the chalk line as best you can.
Once you are finished you should have an "x" stitched onto your square and the two pieces of fabric should be firmly joined and you can remove the pins. It doesnt matter if the stitching is perfectly straight, and in fact I think having it wonky just adds to the charm!
Elizabeth has just about finished stitching all her fabric pairs together. Because she was a bit older I showed her how to chain stitch... there is a pic of this 3 posts up.
I have a son, and in case you were wondering, he was hanging about the whole day we had this marathon sewing session. Here is he having a nap on the couch.
Once you have stitched all the fabric pairs together with diagional lines its time to lay out all you squares and arrange them in a way that is pleasing to you. Elizabeths denim quilt had a mixture of light and dark denims, as well as a few squares with denim pockets or embroidery on them. We arranged the blocks randomly but with an even scatter of light and dark denim.
Ella's quilt was also arranged in a random way, but also making sure there was an even scatter of colour throughout the quilt.
Matilda's quilt was arranged in a diagional pattern.
To sew the quilt to together pick up two adjecent blocks (above) and place them so that the flanelette backing fabric touches and then stich the seam with a generous seam allowance (suggest about 0.5-1inch). It might also help if you actually place some masking tape on your metal place about 1" away from your needle to kids the kids a really good visual. They can butt the edge of the fabric up against the masking tape.
Here is Matilda stitching the seam.
And here she is holding up her first completed row.
Here is a pic of Matildas quilt showing how the squares are stiched together (into pairs) and then the pairs are stiched together to join the rows.
And Elizabeths quilt showing the same thing. Once you have joined all the squares into rows the rows need to be joined to each other. Ideally the all the "points" should match up with each other, but the reality is that they wont. The squares would not all have started out at exactly 10" and the kids would not have sewing even seam allowances, so some rows will end up longer than others etc. Just match up as best you can, and you may need to let out or increase some seam allowances to get all the rows to match up nicely. It doesnt matter if the seams look a bit like a dogs brekfast, because they get "ragged" up and all the mistakes will be hidden ;)
Once all the squares are stitched together its necessary to run a row of stitching all the way around the quilt. There is no binding on this quilt, and the row of stitching allows the raw edge to "rag" (fray) up to the seam but no further.
Next, and final job, is to carefully snip each seam to get the fraying process happening quickly.
Snip about 1/2" apart but but try not to snip over the seam! If you do... dont panic, just resew that seam, going around the snipped bit to secure it.
Matilda with her finished quilt (unsnipped in this photo). Just so you dont get confused, we ended up changing the layout of her quit slightly. In the photo above it was a square quilt with a 6x6 layout, and we ended up sewing it as a rectangular quilt with a 5x7 layout.
The back of Matilda's quilt.
Ella's quilt... again we swapped from a 6x6 layout to a 5 x 7 one.
The back of Ella's quilt. If the randon placing of a directional print is likely to annoy your child its best for the to pick a non-directional pring for the backing fabric (like Matildas). It would be quite a challenge for a child to try and sew this quilt so that both the front and back had 'direction'.
Elizabeths denim raggy quilt
Back of the raggy quilt.
Miss E and I made ourselves some skirts this week. E's was just a super simple rectangle of fabric (about 0.5yard cut accross the bold, so 40" wide) and she sewed it into a tube, hemmed the bottom and added elastic to the waist to gather it in. Its just the right amount of "puff" for a girl her age I reckon. This fabric is so cute, and she created the rest of the outfit from her wardrobe.
With the elastic waistband I got her to overlock the top edge and then literaly just stitched a circle of elastic to that. Didnt even bother turning it over! Its lazy, but also makes the waistband less bulky.
My skirt is based on a great tutorial by Angry chicken called the 5 minute skirt. I probably first made a skirt from this tutorial 18 months ago, but I am not sure if I ever blogged the results. I made a template at that time and have just used that every time I've made the skirt since. If I recall the main difference I made to the tutorial pattern was to take my hip measurement rather than my waist and cut out the skirt with the intention that it would hang from the hip. I didnt like the idea of an high waisted skirt with an elastic waist, and instead have sewn all my skirts from this turotial with a wide band of knit fabric at the waist instead. As you can see in the pics the knit fabric waistband is hidden underneath the t-shirt I team up with it.
This time I made the skirt up out of a soft blue/grey denim. The bias cut of the skirt really lets it hang nicely. Its fitted without sticking to all the lumps and bumps. ;P
Here is the stretchy waistband. It is ~6" wide (so cut 12" but it is folded over and stitched on) and the length to cut is 70-80% of the circumference of your skirt opening. You can wear it up like this (to cover a pregnant belly perhaps?) or fold it over and make it a smaller 3" stretch waistband.
