Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC. And I’ve got a fun project for you today.
Take a look at this quilt behind me. Isn’t this great? Doesn’t it look like rick rack?
To me it looks just like rick racks so that’s what I called it, the Rick Rack quilt. So
to make this quilt what you’re going to need is one roll of 2 ½ inch strips of a
print fabric. And we have used Sun Prints 2019 by Alison Glass for Andover. You’re
also going to need a roll of white background strips. You know whatever background color
you choose, you’re going to need a roll of those. For your inner border you’re going
to need a ¼ of a yard for this. And for your outer border you’re going to need 1 ¼ yards
and that’s a nice big six inch border. And it, your background, let’s look at the backing.
Our backing is 4 ¾ yards. Oh this is such a cute print. It’s, it’s, she’s got
these cute little prints in here with all these tiny little things and it’s just really
a cute print. Then the quilt is going to be about 75 by 75 finished so it’s a great
size quilt and a lot of fun to make.
So to make this quilt, we’re going to make it in a semi log cabin fashion. So we’re
going to take a strip of color, and once you get going on these you can layer several,
and a strip of white. And we’re going to cut them together because you need the same
cuts for each block. The first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to cut six 2
½ inch squares because those are going to make our little half square triangles on the
edge of the block. This is what I’m talking about right here. See we’ve got these little
half square triangles. So we’re going to cut six 2 ½ inch squares. And I’m going
to cut off my selvedge right here. And then with this ruler is so handy because you just
lay it on the edge. So we’re going to cut one, two, three, four, five, and six, just
like this. Now we’re going to stack these up over here because these are all going to
be our little half square triangles. And then we’re going to cut the rest of our strip.
Now the rest of our strip is cut in 4 ½, 6 ½ and 8 ½ inch strips. And we’re going
to cut them two at a time. So I’m going to cut 4 ½ right here and set those aside.
And you’ll want to do this to all your strips. Actually with this quilt behind me I pulled
out 36 strips and made it so it was nice and square. So 6 ½ is the second cut. The third
cut is going to be 8 ½. And this ruler isn’t long enough for that so I’m going to lay
this out here and get my big ruler and I’m going to come over 8 ½ on this one. So here’s
8 ½. So once you get your pieces cut we’re just going to set this over here. And you’ll
want to stack them and keep those sizes together. I actually compiled this a block at a time
because it was easy for me not to, not to lose track. But for those of you who like
to do all your cutting first that’s how you’ll want to cut your strips up.
Now I have one started here. It’s an orange one just like this strip right here. And,
and I have most of my half square triangles made except for this one so that I can show
you on this one. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to lay this on top of
here and we’re going to draw a line side to side so we can make a half square triangle.
You can draw the line. You can iron the line and you can even eyeball if you’re, if you’re
really good. We’re going to sew right on the line, not on either side but right on
it. And so we’re going to come here to the sewing machine and line up our needle. And
I just, there we go. And I’m going to line it up there and sew. There we go. And now
what I’m going to do is I’m going to trim off the one side of this like this. Oops,
can’t trim with a pen, can I? I better use my rotary cutter. That’s always so funny
when you get something in your hand and all of a sudden you look at it and you’re like,
what’s wrong with this picture? Alright so I’m going to set the seam and roll this
back. So we made six 2 ½ inch cuts and five of them you’re going to make into half square
triangles just like this. And then one of them you’re going to leave whole. So now
we’re going to start making our little block in the corner. And we are going to put two
whole blocks, two whole 2 ½ inch blocks and two of our little half square triangles right
here just like this. And we’re going to sew that together in a four patch. So let’s
go over to the sewing machine. I’m going to line these up just like this. And we are
going to go to the sewing machine and sew those down. There’s my first one and here
comes the second. Alright, now let’s look and make sure they’re lined up and going
the right way. And they are so we’re going to sew those together. I had to check that
for a second. I’m like, and they are. There was a little hallelujah moment right there.
Alrighty.
Now we’re going to iron this open. And we’re going to build our block around this little
block right here. So the whole block is built around this square. And what we’re going
to do next is we’re going to take all of our printed pieces of fabric right here and
we’re going to sew a half square triangle to the top of them. And we’re just going
to make sure that we line up the white with the print so they go on here like this. So
let’s go ahead and sew those on. Alright there’s one, let’s do the next. And you
want to make sure they’re put on there the same direction. And this is why it’s a good
idea to do them all at once so you can watch as they’re going through that they’re
all oriented the same way. Alrighty. There we go. Clip them apart. And we’re going
to go press these open. Alrighty.
Ok so now we’re ready to build our block and we’re going to start with our white
strips and we’re going to orient them like this so it’s going to go this way with our
little 4 ½ inch strip and then we’re going to grab our 4 ½ inch color that we put the
strip on and we’re going to put it over here like this. See how these are starting
to line up already. So let’s go ahead and build this. We’re going to put our white
on this side right here. And I actually like to press these open each one. But I’m just
going to finger press this back and add this. But when you do it in your house you’ll
want to move your iron real close and just sit and sew and iron and sew and iron and
sew and iron. Alrighty now I’m going to make sure this little seam nests up and matches
up. That’s the only one we’ve got to match. Alright we’re going to press this back and
our first round is done. So now we have our little block done and we’re just going to
add our next row. Your white, you’re always going to match your white to your white and
then this one is going to come over here on this side like this. And I like to lay them
out to make sure I’m going the right direction. And we’re going to sew these on. Alright
now we’ll add that row on the top and I’ll finger press that down. You have to be careful
finger pressing because you want to make sure that you don’t get a fold in your seam.
That’s why I usually just go right to the iron but. Alright let me make sure this is
lined up pretty good here. And the next row again, let’s press it. These are so fun
when they start coming together. We’re going to put our white on here and our long piece
on this side. So we’ll go do that. I get like a horse to water with these things. It’s
like I’ve got to see it finished, it’s so cute. And now this side one over here.
And I do like to start from the end or the, I mean either way works but the end when they
get this big I like to flip it around and start from the end and do my lining up last.
I’m not sure why that happens but I do. The others I’m like all ok doing from the
top. I don’t know why. But when I get to this long one I always kind of flip it around.
Alrighty. Now let’s press this open. Oh that’s so pretty. Look how cute that is.
Isn’t that great?
Now the fun part with this, I set these together so the whites came together to form squares.
Now I’ve got some other ones over here. And you’re just going to put them together
like this so that all the whites come together in the middle. And it makes this cool pattern
like this. But because these are set up in kind of a log cabin style there’s lots of
ways to set them. So you have fun with that set up. Let’s look at ours right here. We’ve
got, we’ve got, this is our block right here so we’ve got one, two, three, four,
five, six, across and six down. I sewed those together in big blocks of four. And then put
them up and then sewed my big rows together. So this block of four goes together. And the
cool thing about this is that when you put them this way, you have your blocks running
this way and this way so you’re not really matching anything up except for this little
triangle down here on the bottom. So when you go to sew these together just make sure
that this little piece down here is nested and it lines up so that those little points
match. And those are really the only points you have to match. But it just makes a darling
quilt and it goes together so cute and easy. And we hope you enjoyed this tutorial on the
Rick Rack quilt from the MSQC.