AboutAudrey Zohner Expertise I am an expert rag quilter. I have made over 100 rag quilts and would love to assist others with questions and methods. I don't know much about actual quilting like machine or hand quilting or applique. I am, however, the resident expert on rag quilting in my town. If you want to make a rag quilt, I am your woman.
Experience I have been sewing for 12 years and rag quilting for 4. I have experienced just about every pitfall there is in rag quilting. Check out my quilts at audreysragquilts.etsy.com.
Organizations ISU Craft Club
EtsyKids
Education/Credentials High school diploma
Bachelor's in Animal Science
Question just made a denim/flannel rag quilt for my grandson for college.....washed & dryed and will vacuum the extra threads....will the seams fray to the point of coming apart? Will his friends end up with threads all over them if they sit on it? This is the second one I have made but first was for a baby....they don't care if they become "linty" I wonder, for the future if a double seam or a slight zig zag seam would be better. I am afraid of unraveling. Any help will be most appreciated.Thanks Bonnie
Answer Hi Bonnie!
I have a denim/flannel quilt myself that I have washed maybe 4-5 times and it doesn't lint much anymore. It did lint like crazy for the first two washes and then tapered off. I wouldn't worry about people getting lint on themselves. Usually the lint stays on the quilt unless the person has a static charge.
When I started making rag quilts, a few of my seams did rag out. However, this was because I clipped my seams too close. As long as you have at least 1/4 inch left close to the seam, it won't rag to nothing. All I had to do to fix the seams was resew them, leaving more room between the edge of the snip and the seam.
The bigger problem that I have had with larger quilts is threads breaking after washing. The thread just couldn't take all the weight when the quilt was wet is my theory as to when/why they broke. Anyway, now on all my quilts, I sew a double seam on all the long seams. You know how you sew all your blocks into rows and then sew the rows together? I sew a double seam when sewing together my rows. The thread breaks were always along the long seams, but now that I sew the double seam, I haven't seen any more thread breaks.
I don't bother to sew a double seam when sewing my blocks into rows because the thread is strong enough to hold the smaller seams.
