Flannel Quilt

Two months ago, someone gave me a box filled with flannel scraps. There were lots of long, skinny strips and hundreds of irregularly shaped small pieces. The two largest pieces in the box were 9 inches square. The smart thing to do would have been to shove the box into a dark corner of my sewing room and forget about it. Instead, I made this 38 x 38-inch flannel quilt.

Working with stretchy flannel was challenging for me. After I cut my pieces, I sprayed them with Magic Sizing and ironed them flat before I sewed them. The directions on the sizing spray can said to use a lower heat setting than the one appropriate for the fabric, but this didn't work for me. I set my iron on cotton and left it there. After I sewed my seams, I sprayed them with sizing and ironed them open instead of pressing them to one side because I thought the seams would have been too thick otherwise.

I started quilting using a straight stitch in the ditch. But, when I was about half way finished I decided I didn't like the way it looked so I picked out everything and quilted using a zig zag stitch which I liked a lot better. I used my Singer 401 with a walking foot for the whole project, including the zig zag stitches. You can see the zig zag stitching in this photo of one of my favorite squares – The one and only piece of sock monkey fabric in the entire box.

The binding is made from scraps, too. I made it 2.5 inches wide, but would make it 3 inches if I had it to do over again. I machine stitched the binding to the top side and hand stitched it to the back. The back, shown below, is a piece of flannel from my stash.

There are a ton of scraps left in the box and I have a couple of ideas for what I might like to do with them, so stay tuned. Happy sewing, everyone!