Denim and Homespun Rag Quilt Tutorial Part 4

{Nifty Thrifty Denim Rag Quilt Tutorial Part 1}
{Nifty Thrifty Denim Rag Quilt Tutorial Part 2}
{Nifty Thrifty Denim Rag Quilt Tutorial Part 3}

Part 4

Hey guys and gals! If you have made it this far; you rock. We have put a lot of effort into our quilt. I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Now that all of our rows have been sewn and laid to the side, it is time to sew them together. Once first two rows have been sewn to each other it should look something like this:

First, you will want to grab Row 1 and Row 2.

Lay {Row 1} face down with the back facing up. Now put {Row 2} on top of  {Row 1} the WRONG sides together. {Back to Back}. As you put them together, make sure you are lining up {Row 1, Square 1} with {Row 2, Square 1}. It would be a pain to sew it on backwards and have to rip it apart and start over.

Start with the first seam on the row. It should be the one that connected {Square 1 and 2} together on {Row 1}. Line it up with the same seam on {Row 2}.  Remember they have their backs facing each other.

You should now have WRONG sides facing each other, seam lined up, and a flap facing out on both RIGHT sides or your fabric.

Think about how your material is going to go through the machine when you sew. On that side that faces down toward the machine you will want the flap pointed down and the side that is facing you, you will want the flap facing up. This way you don't have to worry about which direction your flap is going while sewing. The flap on the back will always be down and the flap on the front will always be up.

If the machine catches the flap that is facing up, you will be able to correct it before it sews it down. It would be really hard to catch any errors if the flap was on the back. This just makes it easier as you go along.

It is time to pin. Seams are lined up, flaps are in the correct direction, pin. I used one pin for each side of the seam on the flap. Go all the way down your row and do the seams this way. Once you have those pinned you can go back and line up the edges and pin them. I skipped that step, but I wouldn't advise doing that.

Here you can see that once I got my rows under the machine, I had my flap on top facing up.

This also helps because your machine is only going through six layers of fabric at a time rather than the eight it would have to go through if the seams were going the same direction.

Sewing across the seam.

Your machine may grumble and growl. You may break a needle. You WILL break your thread. Just be patient and go fairly slow. It will work. Trust me. If Ol' Gerty can sew through all that, your machine can too.

You will want to sew your rows like so..

Sew

{Row 1} to {Row 2}

{Row 3} to {Row 4}

{Row 5} to {Row 6}

{Row 7} to {Row 8}

{Row 9} to {Row 10}

Then you can go back and sew {Rows 1 and 2} to {Rows 3 and 4}.  Now sew {Rows 5 and 6} to {7 and 8}.  Then sew {Rows 5, 6, 7, and 8} to {Rows 9 and 10}.

Finally you will sew {Rows 1,2,3 and 4} to {Rows 5,6,7,8,9 and 10}

This just seems to make it easier with less bulk on your machine.

MAKE SURE YOU ARE SEWING THE ROWS TO THE CORRECT SIDE AND THEY ARE TURNED THE CORRECT DIRECTION.

As you start to get more than two rows sewed together you will notice that your flaps look odd. I have an example photo below.

It is OK that one side is facing down and one side is facing up. We will fix that when we are snipping. It will free up when snipped. Don't stress!

Once all your rows have been sewn together; your quilt should look something like this:

Thanks for following along!

In Part 5 we will cover sewing a seam around the outside of your quilt, snipping, and washing.

Good luck and please share your work with me.

{Nifty Thrifty Denim Rag Quilt Tutorial Part 5}