Beauty School Dropout

Much better, don't you think?  I am not good at sewing by any stretch of the imagination, but several people  have asked me how I put the backing on, so here's my method of madness. 

Fabric:   I used flannel because I wanted something soft.  I would think that many different types of fabris would work, though.  (I found this floral flannel at Jo-Ann Fabrics, in the children's fabric section.)  I bought thee yards, thinking it would be WAY too much, and it turned out to be exactly the right amount.  Hint from my 4-H sewing days:  ALWAYS wash and dry your fabric before starting a sewing project.  I think I cut the fabric in half and sewed it together sideways to make it roughly the same dimensions as the afghan. 

Cutting the fabric:  Here's where my sewing gets a little loosey goosey.  I just laid the afghan on the floor, laid the fabric on top, and cut around it, leaving a couple inches more fabric hanging over the edge of the afghan.  The tricky part here is that the afghan - being knit - is WAY stretchier than the flannel.  I just tried to lay the blanket flat, not too stretched out, and more or less a rectangular shape.  If I were doing this again, I think I might try to fuse some kind of iron-on interfacing to the afghan before I started sewing on it.  The stretchiness of the afghan makes this whole project pretty tricky.  So anything you can think of to stabilize it is a good thing.   

Pinning:  First, you have to pin the fabric onto the afghan.  For me, it was easiest to work with the fabric on top of the afghan to make sure everything was laying flat as it got pinned together.  (4-H says: Remember, pin with right sides together!  You're going to turn the whole thing inside out at the end, leaving the seams on the inside.)  However, later on I wanted to sew with the aghan on top, so I put the pins in on the afghan side, so they were easier to pull out as I was sewing.  I found the best way to pin was to put pins at each corner and the center of each edge, then fill in from there. 

Sewing:  Everything I've read says that when you're sewing on large-gauge knit fabric, you should adjust the tension of the sewing machine so the stitches are longer.  So, get out that dusty old sewing machine manual and figure out how that works.  If nothing else, it will be so worth it if you have to rip any of the stitches out. 

Like I said above, I sewed with the afghan facing up.  (4-H says:  Don't forget to start a couple of inches ahead of the edge, and sew backwards to your starting point, then start sewing.  There's a button on the front of your sewing machine that makes it sew backwards.  Knitter says:  This is like weaving in your ends for a sewing machine.)  I put a garter stitch border on my blanket, so I just tried to keep the stitches running down the valley between the outside 2 garter ridges.   I found it really hard to keep the seam straight, but that got easier with practice.  I figure as long as it was close, it was good enough.  Clearly, I am much more of a control freak when it comes to knitting then sewing. 

By the end I think I finally figured out a way to keep the afghan from stretching while I was sewing it.  Basically, I held the fabric and afghan straight out in front of the sewing machine, holding it at the point where the next pin was.  As I reached a pin while I was sewing, I took it out just before it went under the presser foot/needle.  Sometimes the gap between that needle and the next one was pretty long.  So I held out the fabric and put the pin back in, about halfway between the presser foot and the next pin.  Basically, you cannot have too many pins in this thing.  The afghan wants to stretch out as you are sewing it and the result will make the backing look all puckery.  (Ask me how I know.)

Okay, so follow these steps for three edges, then sew the final edge but leave about 18 inches unsewn.  (4-H says:  You better remember to leave that section open, or you won't be able to turn the whole thing right-side out!)  After sewing each edge, I laid the afghan back on the ground and made sure that the fabric was laying flat, and adjusted the pins as necessary.   If you are doing this the same way I did, with the afghan facing up as you sew, you will realize that one of the sides requires you to jam the entire blanket between the arm of the sewing maching and the needle.  That's a lot of fabric to get through a fairly small space, pluc be sewing that edge at the same time.  I am here to tell you that it IS possible.  However, you could probably flip the thing over and save yourself a lot of trouble. 

Once the machine sewing is done, you have approx. an 18-inch hole left on one of the sides.  Turn the entire thing right side out.  Isn't it pretty?  Lay it flat and make sure that the front and back more or less match up - no wonky extra fabric or puckering anywhere.  (Knitter says:  I'm duct-taping 4-H's mouth shut right now.  This is not the time for perfectionism, people.)  Using a hand-sewing needle and thread, sew the remaining seam closed.  I just went back and forth between the fabric and the afghan - on the afghan side I following the same garter ridge and actualy went through the same stitches I would use if I were seaming up a knitting project.  

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Originally uploaded by kerner.

"Quilting" the back and front together: At this point, there was no way I was sticking the afghan back under the sewing machine needle.  Too many chances for something to go wrong.  Instead, I went with my grandma's method of quilting, which is threading pieces of yarn through the front and back of the quilt, and tying a knot.  Using all the leftover Kureyon scraps from when I trimmed all the ends off the back of the afghan, I tied a knot at the corner of each Lizard Ridge square.  This is another opportunity to have the front and back not match up, so I went down the middle first, then filled in each corner.  Oh - a note on tools - I had to buy a new needle for this job.  You need something large enough to thread a piece of yarn through, but thin enough to stick through a piece of flannel.  My normal yarn darning needle is way to blunt, and there was no way I could thread Kureyon through a regular sewing needle.  Turns out there is such a thing as a pointy darning needle, I had just never one before.  I found a pack of 6 in the Wal-Mart craft section for less than a dollar.  This made this part of the project MUCH easier. 

And voila!  Here is the finished project.  I really like how using the scraps brings all the different colors onto the back of the afghan, too.