Calliope - Thank you for your suggestion of dividing the quilt into more manageable sections, what a great idea! I'll be grateful to you when I'm working on this quilt :) Since your quilt is warm enough for an Ohio winter I feel comfortable going without anything in the center at all. Love the colors you chose the red flannel with the denim must look awesome! Thank you too for letting me know that you work with 1" seams. I've been wondering about this since some work with 1/2" seams. I bet it makes a prettier fray this way too so I'll definitely take your advice here. I'm not surprised at all that your grandson values his quilt for its beauty and because it was made by your loving hands. The color (and denim) you chose for the quilt definitely makes it more masculine. I believe men appreciate our quilts more than they lead us to believe :) My husband rolls his eyes and yawns (jokingly) hearing about my quilt projects. However, he could hold his own talking with a group of quilters about quilts because I tell him details anyway LOL! When I finish the first one I'm going to make a 2nd rag quilt (raffle quilt) that will benefit the Alzheimer's Association. I've made 2 raffle quilts for them in the past. The last one was a paper pieced queen size pineapple quilt. A rag quilt is more sensible since the pineapple quilt didn't raise the dollar amount it was worth. I'm in the market for a featherweight because my sewing machine bit the dust (it was way too expensive to repair.) So I've begun collecting denim in the mean time. It's been 1 1/2 years since I've worked on a quilt (that's when the machine broke.) Yes, I had withdrawal symptoms and am very eager to get back to my quilt projects. Calliope, thanks again for your helpful suggestions! Lea

The cost of the Viking walking foot is just outrageous, but it's so worth it in the end. It's already paid for itself by the quilting that I've been able to do myself. I've finished 3 quilts & a few misc projects just this year. And I didn't know that I needed a walking foot for this rag quilt until I saw the layers spreading. I think the flannel was thicker on this one than my 1st because I didn't need one on the last one I did. I think if the blocks are larger, or you have batting in them, then you would need to sew an X. I left that step out since I didn't put anything extra in it. Makes it go quicker. And yes...it will look MUCH better once I snip it. I'll do that in front of the TV one of these nights once I get my hands on a small pair of snippers.

I,m making "rag quilts" right now have tried them both ways fabric wash first and not washed fabric all are turning out just fine, right now have one in the washer that I didn,t put the X through the middle just to see how that turns out. The only colour I would wash is red and green. Gillian.

I would agree with Beverly. I'm lazy too. Or maybe I just want to get my quilts done faster. :) I did a tied rag quilt a few years back with cotton batting inside. I love the quilt & the weight, but thought it was a pain to cut the batting a different size & have to sandwich each square, then sew around the batting & then sew an X or whatever inside each square...all before I assemble the quilt. The most recent rag quilts I've done with just 2 layers of flannel, I have not sewn X's in the squares (because there wasn't any batting/flannel) & they've turned out fine.