call to quilters

I have gone rag quilt crazy. I've gotten about 500 squares cut and ready to
start putting together. Here is my question, when you sew the squares all
together what do you do at the corners? I.e. sew the seams open? Stop and
don't overlap the seams? Sew the seams all one way?

Please let me know.

Sandra

From: "s.whitley"

I have gone rag quilt crazy. ........ when you sew the squares all
together what do you do at the corners? .......

UMMM -- you'll get a better response if you post this to the quilting
newsgroup :-))). That being said -- I quilt and have made several ragg quilts.
When I sew my blocks together, I open up the seams and stitch across them.
Then I go back and clip the seam allowance close to both sides of the line of
stitching. CiaoMeow ^;;^
..


PAX, Tia Mary ^;;^
Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their
WHISKERS!!
Nothing is complete without a few cat hairs!

Here is my question, when you sew the squares all
together what do you do at the corners? I.e. sew the seams open?


I've quilted forever and this is what I would do. I would sew a strip of
squares, the width of the finished quilt, together and iron it so all of the
fabric on the inside, at the seams, goes one way. The seam margin should be 1/4
inch wide. More fabric is not needed and would be very bulky. In a quilt never
iron the seams open! This is the first row. Then decide how you want the
second row, what fabrics where to go with the first row. Stitch all of the
second row pieces together. Iron this row so the fabric goes the opposite way
the first did. This is done so when you stitch the two rows together the two
seams will push against eachother so you get a perfect intersection of four
pieces. Go on row by row, alternating the direction the seams are ironed. I
would sew each finished row to the quilt as I finish it. If you have any other
questions, about piecing or finishing your quilt, just e-mail me. It is nice
to have another quilter around. Boo

From: (Boohoo1971)

....... I would sew a strip of
squares, the width of the finished quilt, together and iron it so all of the
fabric on the inside, at the seams, goes one way. ...........

This is correct for a "regular" quilt but, IIRC, the original poster is
making a ragg quilt -- one of those that has the seam allowance on the *front*
of the quilt. The seam allowance is clipped and the quilt is washed a bunch of
times to make it look all raggedy.
For those who are not familiar with ragg quilts, all of the blocks, backing
& batting are cut into pieces. You layer a piece of backing, batting and block
fabric and then quilt each block individually. I machine quilt either a plain
old X across the block sandwich or some fancy design from my embroidery
machine. Once all of the blocks sandwiches are quilted, they are assembled
into a finished quilt. Again -- all of the seams are kept to the face of the
quilt so that they will fray and ravel and looke all raggedy. They are
*really* nice looking quilts and you don't have to be quite as precise matching
your corners :-))! CiaoMeow ^;;^
..
PAX, Tia Mary ^;;^
Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their
WHISKERS!!
Nothing is complete without a few cat hairs!

Thanks, I did that the first time but didn't know if it was right. The one
I'm doing now is for a baby shower and I'd like it to be a little bit better
than the first. I have about 6 planned, this will be number one down :-)

Sandra


"Tia Mary-remove nekoluvr to reply " wrote in
message ...
From: "s.whitley"

I have gone rag quilt crazy. ........ when you sew the squares all
together what do you do at the corners? .......

UMMM -- you'll get a better response if you post this to the quilting
newsgroup :-))). That being said -- I quilt and have made several ragg
quilts.
When I sew my blocks together, I open up the seams and stitch across
them.
Then I go back and clip the seam allowance close to both sides of the line
of
stitching. CiaoMeow ^;;^
.


PAX, Tia Mary ^;;^
Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about
their
WHISKERS!!
Nothing is complete without a few cat hairs!

From: "s.whitley"

Thanks, I did that the first time but didn't know if it was right.

Hi Sandra, I'm not sure if it is "right" as in what the directions in some
book tell you to do :-))). I DO know that the ragg quilts I saw on display at
the AQS last year in Nashville were done that way. I figuered if it's good
enough for the "professionals" then it's good enough for MOI -- LOLOL!!
CiaoMeow ^;;^
..
PAX, Tia Mary ^;;^
Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their
WHISKERS!!
Nothing is complete without a few cat hairs!