One of my friends from the Richard A. Anderson VFW Post #8953 told me they had quite a few Crown Royal bags. For those of you who might not know what that is – I didn’t either because I don’t drink Crown Royal. It is a bag made of a very lightweight flannel in a size to fit the bottle. They come in small sizes & large sizes. After working with them for awhile, I found out that within each size, they are not even the same size all the time.
So, I took on the project of making a Crown Royal quilt. Let’s step back here a minute – why is it that when you sew, everybody thinks you can do everything? I have NEVER in my life made a quilt. This was to be my first quilt & I was scared to death.
I spent months & months researching patterns for the quilt, bought books, searched on the internet, & thought about it a lot. Since this was probably going to be my one & only quilt, I turned to an Excel spreadsheet to lay out the pattern instead of buying a quilting program for my computer. For those who don’t know me, I am slightly Obsessive Compulsive Anal Retentive, to some maybe a bit more than slightly. I laid out 3 different patterns that I liked & this is my final decision:
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This is a King/Queen size quilt and there are 625 individual squares that make up this quilt. I sewed 5 squares together in a line & then sewed 4 more rows of 5 squares. I combined these 5 rows into one big square. I repeated this 24 more times (giving me twenty-five 5″ square squares).
I started with a specialty square in the middle of the quilt & built my strips, alternating colors as I went. I used the flannel bags, front & back, & light fleece – white, purple tie-dye, darker purple & a light lilac, for the front. Finding the right colors was another time consuming thing.
Now remember, I am using a home sewing machine, with this HUGE quilt once it is all put together. By rolling the quilt up so I only had a little bit at a time under the needle, I finally got all of the squares within squares put together. Now comes the fun part – putting the batting & backing on the front. I laid the quilt front side down & laid the batting on the back then, after piecing the backing together (wasn’t large enough), I pinned the 3 layers together to do the quilting. What to do! what to do!
More tight rolling to get it in the needle area & turning it around to do only 1/4 at a time. I decided to do the quilting in the corners only instead of across the whole quilt & started in the middle & worked my way to the outside of the quilt.
I decided to use the sides of the bags as my binding so I had to cut them & sew them into a long strip – long enough to go around the outside of the quilt. I pinned it on the back side & folded it over & sewed it. I had a few problems with the corners but persevered & completed the quilt. It only took me 2 years or so to complete it because as I ran into a problem, I would put it aside so I could do some more research. I don’t like to keep working on a problem after I become frustrated with it – I just get in more trouble.
Here is a picture of the quilt before I put the batting, backing or binding on it.
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What size blocks are used in a crown royal Quilt? I am finding that it is a problem getting the letters centered in the square. I have tried a 4.5 square. Also what thickness of batting and what type fabric for the backing? I have never done this before I am so scared of messing up these bags. Please help. Thanks so much
I thank you for your comment. It has been several years since I made this quilt. Depending on the size quilt you want, will determine how many bags you need. I think I used something like 20 or so. I used mostly the small sized bags but also had several of the larger sizes too. I manufactured them so the writing looked like it was in the middle of the square.
You can make the squares any size you want as long as you can cut it out of the bag. I removed the stitching from the sides of the bags – all the way around. Cutting them into 6″ squares. The center square was a special black bag. I cut out the words & appliqued them over the center of a square made of the back part of the same bag. I got 2 squares and the strips from the sides which I used for the binding.
For the remaining squares, I cut the rounded part of the bag off and attached it to the top of the square. It took me over two years to design & complete the quilt.
I used a white lightweight batting and a lightweight white flannel for the backing. I only attached(quilted) the two pieces in the corners of each square. Most of the rest of the quilt is made of lightweight fleece squares. the CR bags are made of flannel themselves but I couldn’t find anything I liked in flannel to match the color of the bags. I pre-washed them along with the other squares.
I sewed strips of the sides of the bags on the bias & did a wrap around binding (from the back). I only have a sewing machine on which I made this. It became very hard to work with sometimes because of the thickness. I wish you luck working with this unusual material!