My First Rag Quilt & New Quilt Shop

I followed the online tutorial from About.com, and made my first rag quilt!  I have a wonderful aide in my classroom this year who has helped me so much this school year that I am sad to give her up next year!  She, like me, hates winter and the cold so I decided that even though I am going to give this quilt to her in May (end of the school year), I wanted it to be winter themed.  I found some cute snowflake fabric in red and blue and actually used a piece from my scrap stash that has mittens on it.  All the material was flannel and was a little tricky to work with because of the stretchiness.   

I didn't listen to the tip in the tutorial that said that if you use a flannel front and back, you really don't need to use batting in the middle.  It seemed a little to thin for me and I am making this for someone who likes to keep warm in the winter.  Well, I know now why they tell you that tip - the fabric gets WAY too bulky to sew easily in the machine.  So I had to struggle a little bit with that but it turned out pretty good.

I also didn't have spring loaded scissors like they suggested in the tutorial, so I used my sewing scissors to cut the seams so it would become "fluffy".  So now I'm sporting a lovely blister on my thumb :(

As I'm blogging, the rag quilt is in the dryer so I will have to post later to show pics of the finished product.  

I am actually going to a NEW quilt show with my mother-in-law today in Elmhurst, IL.  I'm very excited to visit a new shop - she said it is amazing!

Anyway, here are some pics of the rag quilt in progress...

My fabric squares

 

fabric and batting stack

sewing done, not "fluffing"

Up close, rag style quilt top