Well, vacations over so I guess it's time for that promised tutorial. None of these ideas are new, but I thought it may be helpful to have a all inclusive set of instructions to make this fun baby gift. Sometimes I think the hardest part is figuring out how much material to get, I much prefer the putting everything together part! For this project you will be making 1 Rag blanket, 3 burp rags and 1 taggy block.
For this project I used:
1/3 yd of 5 coordinating fabrics (you should have 1 1/3 yds total)1 1/3 yds fabric for backing
1 pkg. crib sized cotton quilt batting (enough to cut 49, 5" squares)
1/3 yd terry cloth
Scraps of ribbon
Scrap of heat n' bond
stuffing for taggy block
You can use fewer than 5 fabrics for the front, but I wanted to be sure I didn't have any of the same fabrics adjacent to one another. Be sure to cut out fabric as I will show below to ensure you have enough fabrics for all of the projects.
Cutting your fabric:
Five coordinating front fabrics: From four of the five 1/3 yd fabric pieces cut out a total of ten 6" squares. You will only need nine 6"inch squares from the fifth 1/3 yd fabric piece. From 3 fabrics cut a 7/12" piece for burp rags. From all five fabrics cut a 5" square piece for taggy block.
Fabric for backing: Cut 49, 6" squares from backing material. Also cut one 5" square for taggy block.
Cotton quilt batting: Cut 49, 5" squares for blanket.
Terry Cloth: Cut 3, 12x7" pieces, for burp rag.
Whew, what a work out! When you are all done, your lovely stack of stuff should look like this:
Blanket
Assemble quilt squares:
Next place one 6" backing square wrong-side up in front of you. Carefully place 5" batting piece centered on backing piece, you will have about a half inch of backing poking out of all sides. Next, place a 6" front fabric square right side up directly on top of batting piece. Continue until all of your 49 squares are assembled.
Sew your x's:
Next, sew a diagonal line starting about a half inch from the corner down to about a half inch away from the opposite corner. Sew a second line down opposite ends, leaving you with hopefully a perfect x. You are welcome to measure for exactness, but my patience only let me go as far as to eyeball it and I was still happy with my results.
Sew your squares together:
This part trips me up every time I make one of these blankets. To make that cute little scraggly seam, you will need to sew each square wrong-sides together. Place first square wrong-side up before you, place second square right-side up directly on top. Pin in place, sew a 1/2" seam down side. Sew squares together until you have 7 strips with 7 squares in each strip. Be sure to sew squares in an order that won't have any of the same fabric fabrics touching. I laid out all of my squares on the floor and moved them around until I was happy with were I had placed each of them.
Sew strips together:
After you have conquered sewing your blocks into strips. Place one strip before you wrong-side up and lay the adjacent strip directly on top right-side up, pin in place. Sew 1/2" seam down entire side. Continue with remaining strips until you have a pretty blanket.
Completing the deal:
To finish the outer edge on this blanket, I sewed a 1/2" seam around the perimeter. Next, using the point of your scissors, clip within 1/8" of the the seamline, continue along raw edges clipping about every 1/4"-1/2". Pop in a good movie for this part, it can take a while. I just clipped a few squares every time I got a minute throughout the day. Wash blanket to encourage raggedness.
Taggy Block
For the taggy block feel free to use your imagination for decorating each side. I only added something special to two sides and left the other sides to do their own magic.
Heart square
For one side I appliqued a heart using the scrap of heat n' bond and a scrap of the backing fabric. I used a simple zig zag stitch to reinforce it.
Ruffle square:
For the other side, I added a small ruffle. To make ruffle take a 3"x12" strip of scrap fabric (it doesn't have to be that specific dimension, just kind of close). Fold over long edge toward middle about 1/2", press. Repeat on opposite side. Next, bring raw edge toward fold, press. Repeat on opposite side. This should give you a 1/4" hem on both sides. Sew seam down edge.
Place strip down on desired 5" square. Ruffle as desired. Sew seam down center of ruffle to hold in place.
Assembling block:
Getting started:
Once you have all your blocks ready for assembly. Start by placing one 5" square right-side up before you. pin on ribbon if desired. I folded my ribbon over creating a loop to avoid having raw edges that may ravel. Just place folded ribbon so raw edges of ribbon line up with the raw edge of your square. Your ribbon should be perpendicular to the squares raw edge. (If you would rather not loop your ribbon, you can always use heat to melt a raw ribbon edge, but I wasn't sure if it would hold if a baby sucked on it too much.) Place second square right-side down on top of first square and ribbon. Pin in place on one side. Sew a 1/2" seam down side, open and press flat.
Make circle:
Continue sewing blocks together until you have a strip of 4 blocks. Sew first and last blocks together to form a circle of blocks, see photo for better description.
Top it off:
Sew on top square. Finish by sewing bottom square on leaving about 3" open on one side to pull square right-sides out, and to stuff.
Finish it up:
Stuff block with desired stuffing. Hand stitch opening shut. Yeah!
Burp Rags:
These are fairly self explanatory, but I took a picture just for kicks.
Place 7x12" piece of fabric and matching piece of terry cloth right-sides together, pin in place. Sew a 1/4" seam around perimeter leaving about a 3" opening. Turn burp cloth right sides out. Press so opening edges are nicely tucked inside burp cloth. Sew a finishing seam around perimeter of burp cloth.These take about 5 minutes to make, yeah for quick projects.
This baby gift is so fun to put together! If you have any questions about anything, please leave a comment and I will try my best to describe it better.
