Quilt-as-You-Go: Strip Quilt

I'm gonna show you a super simple, quick and scrappy quilt as you go project. I started with a crib size batting which is about 45 by 60. And I pieced a backing from my stash, I had a lot of this plaid fabric so that's what I used. And then I layered in based it just the backing and the batting. We're gonna sew strips on here and the quilt will be constructed as it's quilted. So I went through my stash and found a lot of scraps that I thought looked good with the plaids and I cut them into three and a half inch wide strips. I just chose that width randomly because that's the size of the first ruler I got my hands on. So I cut a bunch of strips three and a half inches wide. I want my strips to be long enough to go from edge to edge of the batting plus a little bit extra. And none of my strips are really that long so I sewed them together to make long strips. This is one of them that I made and I did make it extra long because this way I can sort of adjust which way I want it to go. Anything that's gonna get cut off in the process I can reuse. I want to lay the first strip on the center across the batting. I just opened the batting and the centerfold was still in it, so that's what I'm gonna use to line up my first strip. If I didn't have that fold in it I would probably wanna mark a line perpendicular to the edge so at least I'm starting out straight in the sewing. So the first strip goes on right side up and my next piece strip, kind of the same colors I'm gonna place that right sides together on top of the first strip making sure that the edges of this long strip go all the way to the edge of the batting. And I'm gonna say to just pin it along this center edge where the fold is. What I'm going to do is stitch a quarter of an inch seam. A quarter of an inch from the edge of these two strips and that stitching will go through both layers of strips the batting and the backing so it will be quilting as well as piecing. I want to choose a bobbin thread, that's gonna look okay on the back too because that's gonna be stitching that shows forever it is the quilting stitch. So I'm just pinning these together and, then I'm gonna get my sewing machine and sew that particular seam. So the strips are pinned and all ready to sew, I have my sewing machine set to about 10 to 12 stitches per inch or 2.0 if you have a digital thing going on. And the bobbing thread that's gonna look good with the backing. You're gonna wanna use a walking foot. I have a built-in walking foot or even feed foot so I'm all set and ready to go. I did talk about sewing quarter of an inch seam allowance but for this probably doesn't really matter. I'm gonna start with a back stitch to secure the edge and be sure to remove the pins as you'd go. It's a little big and bulky but if you keep the bulk of it rolled up or scrunched up under the arm of your machine, you'll be fine. Remember this batting is 45 by 16, so the most amount of batting and junk I'll have under here is the 30 inches just half of that width. So it's not as enormous as that might sound. Remember all those safety pins I had in here. I wanna be sure none of them are under the seam I'm trying to sew. Because it's big and bulky, sometimes you have to keep readjusting all the bulk. Still sewing my quarter inch seam allowance and removing the pins. And continue to readjust the bulk that's underneath the sewing machine on. I did press the seam allowances open on these strips just to distribute the bulk. If you want it to press them to one side that would be fine it would probably be a little bit more secure. I have a nice big table that holds the flat surface out really well. And the rest of the quilt is in my lap sometimes it's helpful to hold it up, so it feeds into the machine a little bit more easily. If you have a needle down function on your machine, you are certainly gonna wanna use it. It helps hold everything in place as you continue to sew and readjust the bulk of this quilt. Getting near the end now. Still checking to make sure I'm not gonna sew over a safety pin that would be little bit embarrassing. And when I get to the end, I wanna be sure to back stitch again There you go, it seems all sawn now it just needs to be pressed open. You open it and press it I'm not gonna actually press it but, that's how it works. And the edges the long strips are a little bit too long here so I'm just gonna trim them off, just carelessly with my scissors. And I put that back in the pile of scraps to be sewn into other strips for the next ones. This is what the same looks like on the back so that's why you wanna be sure to choose a thread that coordinates with the backing of your fabric. The next strip that's gonna go on, you can either sew on this side of the first strip or you can continue to sew this way. If you're somebody who likes symmetry, you might wanna make matching strips to go on either side of the center strip. So this is the one that would go on next. You put it right sides together, pin it and once again you'll just sew it and flip it in this direction. So you can keep working one on this side, one on that side. You have to be sure that you're not capturing safety pins underneath 'cause that would make you really sad when you're done with your project. So, at this point I would take out the safety pin so I don't accidentally get them sewn into that. You can do a little bit of planning on your colors if you don't like the symmetrical look you could offset this, or you could even bring in a completely different strip to do this. I did make strips in pairs so that I could show you what it would look like, at least starting symmetrically. You wanna be sure that you've got an interesting group of fabrics. If you think it starts to look boring you might wanna put in something that's maybe a different width. This is a piece of plaid that was actually long enough to go all the way across it and, it's narrower so it'll add a little pizazz to it. And, a whole bunch of strips here that could go into the quilt. I always like stripes that don't quite match everything else I think it makes things a little bit more interesting. So I think you can see where you would go with that you're gonna stitch all the way to the edges so that the entire batting is covered, and then you'll trim the edges. I have another quilt that I made that's the same idea, but a little bit different. The process of making it was the same but I chose brighter fabrics and I started with a diagonal seam through the center. That I did mark because I wouldn't be able to pin it on straight at a diagonal and actually have it look decent unless I marked it first. So that's what I did. I started with a big pile of fabrics that I thought looked good together. I cut random lengths and random widths and then sew it together same with fabric so that they would go all the way across. The same thing I would trim off the edges and recycle them into another strip. So you can see that the quilting goes all the way to the back. Remember you wanna choose a bobbin thread that coordinates with the back because it is going to show. So it's a nice, simple, inexpensive way to make a quilt. Great for a quick gift, charitable projects. So get out some strips and give it a try.