Hi, Iím Jenny, from the Missouri Star Quilt Company, and we thought today that we would
take you from start to finish on how to make a wonderful baby quilt.
Today weíve decided to use this Minkee fabric.
It is a wonderful feeling fabric that just makes you want to rub it and touch it.
Everybody that comes in wants to put it right on their face.
Itís absolutely amazing.
It makes an amazing baby quilt, itís just so soft and the babies love it!
We have it in these large 10î squares that make a really nice sized quilt which Iíll
show you in a little bit, but we wanted to use these little small Charm Packs, Minkee
Brights that come in Charm Packs, and show you how to make a quilt using these.
Some of these are flat, and some are knobby, and so that makes fun for different textures,
and so we thought we would show you how to do that today, and itíll be kind of fun.
Weíve chosen to back our Minkee Rag Quilt with flannel and for one set of these Minkee
Brights, thereís about twenty squares in here, itíll take about a half a yard of flannel
to back it.
So, weíre going to use this striped flannel.
We think itíll be fun, and what weíre going to do with this, see this is the really soft
fuzzy side and this would be the backside, and what we're going to do first is, we've
cut our flannel squares in 5î squares the same size as our Minkees.
This is the back of the flannel you can see, and weíre going to put our backs together,
so that both right sides are out, and then weíre going to go to the sewing machine and
sew an X on here.
Now, when some people make these rag quilts they put a little square of batting in here,
which you can do or not either way, but for today, I like the weight of a Minkee blanket
that is just the flannel and the Minkee.
Itís not too heavy.
Itís just a nice weight.
So, weíll go over to the sewing machine and weíll sew those down into an X shape.
So, this is just really a quick and easy way to make a baby quilt.
We call this a rag quilt because all the seams will be turned toward the front.
So, the first thing weíre going to do on this little baby rag quilt, is weíre going
to sew a stitch line from corner to corner diagonally.
Now, if youíre unsure about yourself and being able to sew a straight line you can
pencil a line in on there, but Iím just going to do what I call eyeballing it and we get
from end to end.
So, weíre going to set this right under here, just like that, and I hold my
point out so that I can see where Iím going to and then I start sewing.
Letís see, there we go, and weíre just going to sew straight across and make an X.
So, thereís one side of our X.
Iím just using beige thread because itíll go with all of it and itíll blend together,
and Iím going to sew the other side of the X.
The reason for the X is to hold the two squares together when we put the seams toward each
other.
So, Iíll explain that in just a sec.
So, you can see the X on this, or maybe you can see it better on this side.
Weíre going to have that little X there and weíre going to
do this to all of our squares and then Iíll show you how we attach them together.
OK, sonow we have our Minkee squares sewn together.
You can see they donít have to be perfect.
The squares donít have to line up perfectly, or your lines donít have to be exactly perfect,
because this is just going to be a real easy fun, quick baby quilt.
And weíre going to end up cutting these edges, and what weíre going to do now is weíre
going to put our flannel is our background so weíre going to put the flannels together,
and line them up, and then weíre going to sew about a Ωî in on the Minkee square.
Right about here and attach those together, and letís go ahead and do that for a few
squares.
There we are, weíre about a Ωî in.
It just rolls along like that, pull it off and see what weíve done here is weíve got
the flannels on the back.
This will make a completely finished back when weíre done.
Then the Minkee comes toward the front
and we have this funny front seam up here and what weíre going to do is weíre going
to clip that.
So, that it frays and gives it a rag look.
This is just an adorable blanket.
So, letís put a few more squares together.
Again, the flannels to the back, and weíre going to sew a Ωî here.
There it goes with the Minkee.
The flannel really helps stabilize it on the back.
This Minkee actually only has a one-way stretch which is nice.
Iíve put some Minkee on the backs of quilts.
Itís just an absolutely exquisite fabric.
Itís just so yummy to touch.
Alright, letís end with a purple one here.
So, here we have a little row and you want to remember now, in this packet of Minkees
thereís only twenty squares.
So, this isnít going to make a very large quilt, but if you get a couple of boxes of
these it just will be an amazing baby quilt, this is so fun to touch.
OK, so hereís your one row.
Weíre going to make a little quilt thatís four by five, and hereís our first row, and
so, weíll sew now the second row together, so you can see how to put that row together.
OK, so nowwe have these two rows together and Iím going to show you how to go ahead
and sew them together.
Itís the same idea.
We lay this one over, backs to backs, and see I didnít even get these all going the
same direction, and even that looks cute!
So, weíre going to put them on here like this.
Weíll line up our little seams, so, it doesnít matter how big
your seam is, it matters that youíre consistent.
So however big you decide to make your seams make them all that size.
I, again, went with Ωî.
So, now weíre just going to sew this, and when we do weíre going to put one side of
this Minkee to one side and the other side, so it doesnít have too much bulk.
Itís really not going to matter either way because
weíre going to cut it and Iíll show you how we do that.
But letís go ahead and sew this together first.
So, here we go, again Ωî I reach underneath here and push this one forward, so that I
have my fabric is going on both sides of my seam line, and again, Iím just going to reach
under here, see, and just tuck that up, and make sure this one comes on the fold.
One more time, weíre going to tuck that over, and you can go either direction.
You could go the bottom forward and the top up but weíre just going to do it this way
for now.
There we go, and hopefully theyíll match up on the edge, but if they donít, again,
itís all right!
So, here we have our little, the first two rows of our rag quilt, and let me show you
what we do now, weíre going to take this edge, weíre going to put our scissors under
it.
Now they make scissors for this that are little nippers that help you be exact, but you can
use any scissors as you see Iím just using my fabric scissors they
have to have good points, and Iím clipping along here about every Ωî, and you have
to make sure you donít cut into your stitch line.
Weíre just cutting along and so, weíll go and weíll trim up this whole little quilt.
Now see right here where our corner is and weíve stitched, we have all our directions,
weíre just stitching on either side of that seam on all sides of that seam.
So, weíre going to go down here.
Weíre going to go over here on this side and snip this one.
We leave the seam intact, but we want all of this to kind of fluff up.
There we go, so then weíll come back down this side and weíll clip it.
Let me get this over here so you can see it better.
There we go.
So, weíll clip this all the way out to the edge.
There we go, OK, so then you can see that this is going to all fray up and be cute,
and we want to do the same thing and just go ahead and clip all the way out here.
All these seams need to be clipped.
See, weíre going right close to that stitch line, but not to it.
So, when we open that up, itíll all fray up, and itíll just look adorable when itís
washed.
That flannel will really fray up and Iíll show you how that will look.
Now the other thing that you need to know when youíre making a rag quilt is how to
finish the edge.
If you just take and sew, again, your Ωî all the way around your edge, you can do the
same thing, just clip tight along it.
So, letís go ahead and Iíll show you, Iíll just sew right down this edge, and weíll
show you how to finish that.
You can add a border or other things, but this is a real quick easy way to do it, and
itís the way I like to finish my rag quilts, because it just makes a fun edge.
So Iím going to sew a Ωî around and then weíll clip that.
OK, so here you can see weíve stitched right along the edge and see I just stitched right
over these because, again, as we clip these weíre going to lift this side up with our
scissors and this side up.
Then as we come to this outside edge weíll just clip right along here and it will give
it a really nice frayed edge when we do it.
See, wonít that be cute?
I canít wait to show it to you all finished!
Weíll do that in a bit, but first I want to show you some other Minkee quilts and some
other rag quilts that weíve done if youíll follow me back into the shop.
OK, I want you to take a look at this Minkee quilt.
This is the package that we have in the shop that comes right here, and we just backed
it on squares of flannel.
Just like we did in there, the flannels a little larger.
Clipped the edge, sewed them together, seams straight up, and this is adorable.
This is a really nice sized blanket.
Itís really fun.
We actually had a woman come in the other day and say, ìIím gonna by me one of these
for my menopause blanket!î I just thought that was hilarious!
Anyways, itís a real great baby blanket, we like to keep it at that, but I wanted to
show you this also.
You know Iím the queen of saving things, and with all the boys at my house we always
have lots of old jeans.
Well, I just took these denim squares, and topped them with homespun, and you can see
how nice that frays up like the old, when you just wash it in the washer it frays up.
I mean your lint trapís going to be full for a couple of times.
But then itís just cute and adorable.
So let me spread this out so you can see what this looks like.
There we go, the nice thing about using this denim on the back is if your denim quilt gets
a hole in it, well you can just iron on a patch!
So, thatís fun and easy!
Anyways, thereís always lots of quick and easy things we can do and we like to help
you do them at the Missouri Star, and we hope that you love this little baby quilt!
Itís just a fast easy, quick baby quilt that babies love to touch it, youíre going to
love this Minkee!
Thanks, from the Missouri Star Quilt Company!