Rustic Nature Themed Flannel Rag Quilt
This past christmas, i made another rag quilt as a gift. I decided with this one i want to give everyone in my family a rag quilt. Practical keepsakes are the best kind i think.
I decided to do a flannel one this time. The first fabric that caught my eye was the bird fabric. From there, i chose the rest. A golden wood grain, a solid burnt sienna color, a dark brown sketch patterned fabric, and for the back a muted tan but with the mulberry stripes that match the berries in the bird fabric. I learned with this project that i can cut 10 layers of fabric at a time to speed things along. I didn’t do it for the bird fabric cause i wanted to make sure it wasn’t crooket, but with the solid for example, it was just fine and whatever gets me to the sewing stage the quickest was well worth it.
Next, to plan the pattern. There is this great site that has a grid paper generator that i use to get the paper you see below with the lines for planning my quilts. I used the square option and the simple grid generator. I set 1 inch blocks, heavy lines, 7 x 10, and made my lines black. Here is a PDF of the grid paper i generated.
I WAS going to do a random pattern, but it just didn’t feel right as i started to do it and asked for opinions that came to the same conclusion. So then i came up with this diagonal one that i felt much better about. I used the grid then below to follow as i sewed the 9 inch blocks together.
You’ll notice in the grid above a small line in the upper right corner going horizontal then vertical and so on. This was so i could keep track of an idea i had for the back fabric as i went. I didn’t want those stripes on the back to just be one direction or a hodgepodge of ways. So i decided to make a pattern with those lines as well. With this system i didn’t mess up once and have to seam rip!
In this picture i was all done sewing and not yet at the ‘snipping stage’. You can get a closer look at the sketch fabric in this photo. This photo was take by ‘procrastinating’ me at 2am on christmas eve!
I finished snipping all but 3 rows before i went to bed for a few hours. (why do i procrastinate!) Then later that morning, i finished snipping and this close up is after i snipped and i was ready to run it through the washer.
I am really proud of this quilt for the pattern of it and fabric color choices. The icing on the cake was it was well received too!