Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. And I’ve got a great
project for you today. Look at this quilt. Isn’t this gorgeous? It’s a darling little
quilt. It’s based on a nine patch. And it borders, the secondary block becomes a four
patch. And it’s just so cute. We’re calling it Hopscotch. So to make this quilt what you’re
going to need is one roll of 2 ½ inch strips, that’s 40 2 ½ inch strips. And we have
used Petal Party Batiks by Kathy Engle for Island Batiks. And it’s just such a vibrant
line. You’re going to need some background fabric. That’s going to be these pieces
here and this first inner border. I used 20 2 ½ inch strips. If you use yardage you can
get a yard and a half and that will be plenty of yardage for that. For your outer border,
this is a nice six inch border. You’re going to need a yard and let me make sure, a yard
and a quarter for that. Your backing back here, look at this backing. It’s just so
vibrant and pretty. The backing is four yards. And so it makes a nice quilt, it’s 65 by
65. So let me show you how to do this.
Now the trick for me, in this quilt, was in the cutting. So when I cut it what I did was
I took my strips, and because you’re going to need to make, you’re going to make a
nine patch. Then you’re going to make like a border that’s all the same color and that
has to be out of the same fabric. So I had to make sure that I got all of those pieces
out of my strips. So what I did was I laid my strips out. And I generally cut them in
half, folded in half so this is a whole strip, folded in half. And I’m going to cut them
two at a time. Now on these wonderful batiks you rarely get, you rarely get a selvedge
edge. But I like to trim it off. I think we’re just in the habit of doing that and I just
like to trim it off. You don’t have to but you can if you need to. Like me, I needed
to. Alright, so you’re going to cut two sets of 2 ½ inch squares. So you’re going
to need four squares. And since mine are folded I’m getting two at a time. So there’s
one and here’s two. And then you’re going to need two sets of 6 ½ inch rectangles.
So 2 ½ by 6 ½. And you can see I’ve laid my ruler on here long-wise. I like to do that
when I’m making that kind of a cut. I feel like it’s really accurate. 6 ½ there we
go. So you’re going to do this to 25 of your strips. And you’re going to want to
keep these together in piles so go ahead and separate your two and put your greens in one
and your purples in one because you want these to be together in piles. These are your border
around your nine patch. These little squares are all going to go in a mixed pile because
you’re going to want to scrap those up.
Now let’s talk about making this nine patch. With the rest of your strips what you’re
going to do is you’re going to sew them together in groups of three. You can see that
I have this sewn together in groups of three, a quarter of an inch right down. We’re going
to sew them together. And we’re going to cut these into 2 ½ inch segments. So I’m
going to go ahead and straighten up this edge right here. It’s interesting to me that
fabrics some all different lengths. You know I feel like they’re not all on the same
machine, you know, to make them but they do, they come different lengths. And so sometimes
you have one sticking out like this. And you just want to make sure you’ve trimmed these
all straight. So I’m going to start here and trim that off. Straighten up my line.
And then I’m going to come over here and I’m just going to cut these into 2 ½ inches.
And this is where this ruler comes in so handy because you really just lay it on the edge.
You can use your seam lines here on the mark lines on the ruler to make sure you’re still
square and you’re just going to cut and you’re going to cut your whole strip into
these. Cut them over and over and over until you’ve finished the whole strip. And all
these are going to go in a fun big pile and you’re going to mix them all up to make
your nine patches. Alright, so you’ll do that to your whole strip. I’m going to stop
there because I have a little pile of mixed ones here. And we need to just mix these up.
So now we’re going to make our nine patch so we’re going to choose three different
segments like this and this. And see I have, so I have the same two fabrics that happen
to be on here. It’s ok with me, they’re on opposite sides. If it was on this way I
would switch it. So just look, make sure they’re aesthetically pleasing to you and you like
the way they look.
So what we’re going to do then is we’re going to lay these together and we’re going
to sew a quarter of an inch down the side. And we’re going to match up at these little
seams all the way along as we go along. So I”m coming here. Sew a quarter of an inch.
Nest your seams. And I actually find for some reason, maybe it’s the texture of the batik,
it seems to, it seems to like stay a little straighter for me or something. I’m not
exactly sure what I’m saying there but maybe if you’re like me and you’ve sewn on a
lot of fabric, some fabric has more give than others. And this fabric just seems to have
good staying power. Alright, make sure that they’re nesting. Alright there’s our little
nine patch. So now what I’m going to do is I’m just going to press this nice and
flat. I like to press from the top to make sure that there’s no folds or creases. And
then I’m going to turn it on the back and make sure it lays nice and flat. Now we’re
going to choose a border to go around ours.
And what I like to do is choose a border that I don’t see in a lot of fabrics which I’m
going to have a little trouble with here because I have, some of these are already done. But
I’ll choose this green one because there is still a green one here. And our border
is going to go around like this. But before we put that border on we want to snowball
all the corners of these. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to take my little 2 ½
inch squares. And I got those from my strip, I took my strip right here, cut it into 2
½ inch squares. And you’ll get 16 out of a strip I believe. And draw the line if you
want. You can also iron the line. And then we’re going to sew these on both sides of
our side pieces, our border pieces. Now on these border pieces what you want to look
at is you want your lines on your block to go out this way, alright? So this is the direction
we’re shooting for like this. So we’re going to do that on all four of these. And
I’m just going to chain piece one side through and flip it around and chain piece the other
side through. Alright, here’s this. And I know that one fell off. I’ll grab him
and put him on the next. And always make sure they’re going from out to in. I mean from
in to out. Now where’s my other, oh there’s my other piece over there. I’m like, wait,
I need four of these. Alright, one more. There we go. Alright so now what I’m going to
do is I’m going to flip these right around and I’m going to sew them right down the
other side. So I’m going to lay my block on here like this so that the line goes in
toward the middle, remember they both have to be pointing out. You’re making like a
little house roof. And then we’re going to sew these together. And so I’m going
to finish sewing these together and I will just meet you right back here.
Alright so now I’ve got all these sewn together. We’re going to clip them apart and trim
off these sides. So right here, we’re going to lay all of our pieces out like this. Make
sure they’re all going the right direction. And they’re all making a little roof. And
then we’re just going to trim off these sides and press them open. Be careful you
don’t cut into your other one. I just barely cut into that other one but I’ll be able
to catch that in the seam. But I’m telling you that so you don’t make the same mistake.
Alright, last one here. Ok. So now these are all waste. And we’re going to press these
back right here. And I”m just going to roll these white sides back like this. Oop. And
this is my last one. And now we’re going to put them around the block.
Now for two of these sides right here, we can sew these right to it. Just like this.
For these two sides we’re going to need something in our corners and that’s where
these other little 2 ½ inch blocks come in. So I’m going to put some blocks over here
in my corners on this one so I know which ones are going to go where. And I think we’re
ok with just about anything in these corners. I like to mix them up so they’re scrappy.
So these two right here I’m going to sew to my nine patch. And I can see when I ironed
this one it didn’t lay back very nicely. I”m going to have to refix that. Alright,
oops. Grab that. Alright now let’s press these open. So that looks good. And two sides
of our block are done. Now on these two, we want to sew our little corners onto our border
piece. And I like to do that, again, by chain piecing so I’m going to lay this corner
on the edge right here and sew down. Put my next piece in there with my next corner like
this, sew along. Then I’m going to flip these around and sew the other sides. And
I just hope that I get the corners on the right corners. Actually it doesn’t matter.
They’re so scrappy, it’s not going to matter. Alright now we’re going to press
these, trim them open, you know, cut them apart. And we’re going to press these. And
one more. And then we can put these on the top and bottom like this. Ya that’s going
to look great. Alright so over here now on this first 2 ½ inch square it’s going to
nest up with our 2 ½ inch rectangle strip so make sure that nests in there. That’s
one of those check points right there. Perfect, sew along and then this is your next check
point is on the other side where again the 2 ½ inch square comes together. It helps
keep things nice and lined up. Alright, here’s this one. And this one I’m going to lay
that seam that way. You really want your seams to be going different directions when you
put together these kind of rows because you don’t want all that bulk on one way. So
you’ll see how these, like even though I ironed them out right here, I’m going to
now iron them in so that they lay nice and flat. I had to turn them so that all my seams
didn’t end up in one side because then you have bulk right there and it, I mean it’s
ok but this will lay nice and flat if you do it that way.
Alright so here’s our little block. And that was pretty painless. It’s pretty fun,
quick and easy. And we’re going to put them together and I’ll show you how that happens.
I have some blocks made over here and I love when a secondary block appears. And this one
is going to appear in the form of a four patch which you’re going to see right here. This
four patch right here that is in a square in a square like that. Do you see how that
happens right here? So when we laid this out we did five across, one, two, three, four,
five, and five down. We make 25 blocks and that’s how many blocks you’re going to
get out of one roll of 2 ½ inch strips. I like to know how much you’re going to get
of a pre cut. This is the size you’re going to get. Now if you want that to be bigger,
pre cuts are so simple because you just buy an additional roll and it doubles the size.
So that makes it really, really simple and easy to do. And we hope you enjoyed this tutorial
on the Hopscotch quilt from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.