The thought of rag quilting brings back memories of those wonderful blankets my Granny’s had in their houses. They were warm, soft and cuddly and they were love. If you have a love for them, you’ll want to check this out and get started on your own. With 12 simple patterns that are easily varied, this may be the only quilt book you need for quite some time!

Rag Quilting

What is rag quilting?

Rag quilting makes quilt as you go very simple. It’s especially great for those of us who have small amounts of time to be able to make an amazing quilt without having to dedicate an entire afternoon or day. A rag quilt is made in sections, layering an piecing them, then putting all of the sections together to make one quilt. Depending on the pattern you choose, every layer of the quilt will show when it’s complete.

Rag quilts are made best with woven fabrics so they are excellent for re-using old clothes. As a matter of fact, the more layers you utilize, the warmer the blanket will be! Personally, I love the way the layers feel with the classic rag quilts! Of course, you can also make the traditional block quilts and surround them with rag layers for a different type of look.

How to get started:

While there are many tutorials out there, I prefer a book that I can go to whenever and wherever. I also appreciate that I don’t have to go through my bookmarks, pinterest or whatever to find exactly what I’m trying to reference. We Received A Beginner’s Guide to Rag Quilting by Christina Mann to get our rag quilting going. I highly recommend it. To get the author’s newsletter, with new patterns almost every week, you can go to her website and sign up! Upon visiting, I immediately found 3 things I had to pin just from her homepage! I’ll be visiting often and I can’t wait to try some of them out, but first I’ll be working through my book!

Whether you want to use a sewing machine or do it by hand, you pretty much need the same basics as you’d need to make any other quilt. My Granny does all her quilts by hand and they are beautiful so I’m going to try my hand at it. I’ve done quilts on the machine, but never by hand. I feel like doing them one section at a time will enable me to more easily work on the quilt and actually complete it. We shall see!

So, the basic needs are as follows: Rotary cutter with at least a 60 mm blade, see through cutting ruler, Cutting mat, pins, basting spray, all-purpose or quilting thread, iron, scissors and material. You are absolutely welcome to get as fancy as you’d like, for example: instead of using scissors you can use rag quilt snips. For this Zoo, we feel simple is best and will stick to what we have.

Why I love this book:

Everyone knows that those with the talents and experience doing things, such as rag quilting, know little tricks and shortcuts that us newbies won’t learn the easy way. Without the guidance of a pro, we’re just figuring it out from some tutorial or another. Often times, those tutorials take for granted the tips and tricks they do naturally. This book, however, gives out all kinds of tips and tricks we otherwise wouldn’t know at the beginning.

The pictures are vivid and clear, not only of the finished product but also has quite a few other photographs. Some of what you need fabric wise: how many of each size and such has it’s own picture. There are also various pictures throughout of cutting diagrams and how to place things when you sew them together. There are also photographs of the quilt top layout and backing layout. I love that it’s so clear.

There are 12 different patterns! Almost all of them have a variation of some sort. There are even walk throughs for how to choose fabrics, lining up the blocks, sewing them, and even how to do appliques on your rag quilt! That takes it to so many new projects! In the back of the book, she also includes a size guide for rag quilts. That is over the top awesome, as with that guide you can make any size of any design.

A Beginner’s Guide to Rag Quilting was published and provided by Familius Publishing. Why do we love familius? I’ll give you two little reasons, among the many: they focus on a happy family life. So much so that the back of the book, in a small section in the corner, informs everyone that this particular book helps families play together and work together. How awesome is that?

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We recently reviewed 15 Minute Mindful Meals and 101 Amazing Uses for Essential Oils which were also published by Familius. They have some fantastic books and we can’t wait to bring you more! For now though, order your Beginner’s Guide to Rag Quilting and get started!  If you are a parent, we also reviewed Dear Libby which answers questions pre-teens and teens ask everyday. Along with The Five Foundations of Successful Teens and Dear Libby. All of which are amazing books and do not disappoint. Familius does well at sticking by their motto!