HomeSpun Rag Quilt

This homespun rag quilt is made using plaid fabrics. The homespun fabric is another excellent choice of fabric to use when making rag quilts, as it frays along its edges very well. The design used here is square in a square. Photo courtesy of Playing with Brushes

Homespun fabric is a fabric made from loosely woven yarn. Before mechanization of the fabric industry homespun was normally spun at home. The cloth was plain, coarse and made from whatever type of animal's fur was available to spin into yarn or thread. The yarn or thread was usually made of wool due to its availability. As can be imagined it was very time consuming to make.

Traditionally once the clothing made from homespun had worn out the usable pieces were salvaged and used in quilts. Towards the end of the 17th century cotton began to be used in the production of homespun.


In the graph below I have given approximate numbers only of the number of squares you will need to cut out. This number is for the back and the front of the quilt. If you are wanting to make your middle layer also using homespun then you will need to cut 50% more squares for the size you are making. Thank goodness for rotary cutters and Charm Packs (Packs of pre-cut fabric squares)!!

Approximate
Sizes

4"
Squares

6"
Squares

10"
Squares

Crib 30"x54"

528

168

Too Large

Twin 69"x90"

2016

600

176

Double 84"x90"

2448

760

220

Queen 90"x95"

2736

840

242

King 108"x108"

Too Many

1152

338

To make a homespun rag quilt similar to the one above you will need to make a range of blocks similar to the one on the left. It is a 'plaid square in a square' block measuring 15" x 15".

Use a 1/4" seam throughout the blocks construction. When sewing the blocks together all the raw edges will be on the quilts front and sewn allowances should be between 3/4" to 1".

To download a copy of the rotary cutting guide to make the above block click on the image below.

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