Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC. And I’ve got a fun project for you today.
Let’s take a look at this quilt behind me. Isn’t this great? I love this color combination.
It’s a really cute fabric. It even has lily of the valley on the fabric which was my grandma’s
favorite flower. So you know I’m going to love that. So to make this quilt what you’re
going to need is one packet of ten inch squares. And we have used Greenery for Maywood Studios.
And when I’m saying one package I mean 42 squares. You’re also going to need one package
of a background solid and we’ve used this nice white right here. So 42 of each of those.
You’re going to need ¾ of a yard for this first border. And a yard for this little outer
border. We just did a little three inch border on this outer border. And it’s just a, you’re
just going to need a yard of fabric for that. For the backing you’re going to need about
five yards of fabric. And we’ve used this gingham on the back. Gingham is so popular
right now and I just love it. It’s just so cute and you’re going to need about five
yards for that. And it makes a quilt that’s 75 by 75 so it’s a pretty good size quilt.
Alright let me show you how to do this because this is really fun.
First we’re going to start by making half square triangles. And we’re going to put
our two fabrics right sides together and sew around this block like this. Just like we
do for our normal half square triangles. And I’ve got this one sewn already and then
we’re going to cut it diagonally both directions. So here we go. We’re going to cut it this
way. Make sure I got that edge. And then we’re going to cut it this way. So diagonally corner
to corner. Now sometimes when you sew these squares together you’ll get a little pucker
or something right here. Don’t worry about that because we’re going to cut right through
that. Alright so then you have four of these half square triangles . We’re going to take
them over to the ironing board and iron them open. Alright now I’ve laid them apart like
this so I can set all my seams at once. That’s kind of a handy little tip. And then we’re
just going to roll them back like this. And then I’ll just keep doing that. You’re
going to do that to all four of these. Alrighty. Now we’ve got four of these. And you’re
going to square yours up to 6 ½ . These are just a little bit bigger than 6 ½ and you’re
going to square them up to 6 ½ because we want blocks that are all the same. And I have
some over here that are already squared up. So I’ve got this one. I’m going to bring
it in. And again square this up to 6 ½. You can see right here it comes right on the 6
½ line. Alright now this is where the magic comes in. This is really fun.
So we’re going to take this half square triangle and we’re going to cut it in half
both directions. Now the block measures 6 ½ so we’re going to divide that in half
and we’re going to come in 3 ¼ from the edge because that’s half of 6 ½ . And we’re
going to cut it this way and then we’re going to turn our ruler and cut it 3 ¼ from
the other edge as well. There we go. So now what we’re going to do is we’re going
to take these two blocks right here and we’re just going to swap them. And look at that
cute block. Isn’t that darling? We’re going to sew this together as a four patch.
But let me do the next one as well so I can show you how we put the whole block together.
So again we just make our four patch. We measure it. We trim it down to 6 ½ . We divide that
in half, that’s 3 ¼. We’re going to come in and cut on both sides, like this, oops,
and like this. 3 ¼. So basically the reason I’m telling you the math like that is because
any size half square triangle, this will work with any size half square triangle. You just
have to measure it and divide that measurement in half. Again we’re just going to take
our big squares out like this and swap them. Isn’t that so cool?
Alright so now we’re going to sew these together. And I”m going to lay these over
like this. And I’m going to take them over to my sewing machine and just sew a quarter
of an inch right down the side. You want to make sure that your block is oriented to the
right direction. So I’m just going to chain piece these together, line them up, sew a
quarter of an inch right down the side. Then I’m going to add my next two in here and
just keep sewing down. You’re going to need four of these to make a block. You’re going
to want to do this to all four of your half square triangles. Hang on I’ve got these
two that are sliding apart here. There we go. Alright now I’m going to cut right in
between here but I’m going to leave these two connected because I know they belong together.
I’m going to open them up to make sure that they’re going all in the right direction
and they are. And so then I’m just going to sew this right down here. Hang on. you’ve
got to get these lined up just right. So take a few stitches and I”m going to find my
middles and line those up, put my finger on there and sew to the center and right on down.
And I’m going to do the same thing to this one. Alright. Line them up, a few stitches,
find my center and make sure I’m nested in there really nice with one seam going one
direction and one going the other. Alright now let’s go to the ironing board and iron
these open. Alright. This is so, this is so fun. I love it when we try something like
this and. You know I was just like, what happens if I cut a half square triangle right in half.
And I love what happened. Alright so here’s our two blocks. And I have two blocks already
done.
Alright so let me show you how to put these together because again they’re just going
to go together like a big four patch. So one block we’re going to put together so that
all the white squares meet in the middle like this, a big four patch where we put that together.
And let’s look up here in the quilt. So you can see every other block has the white
together and the color together, and the white together and the color together. So half of
your blocks are going to be made this way. And then the other half of them are going
to be made this way like this. And that makes one block on our quilt.
So I’ve got some blocks here already done and we’re going to do a colored block. And
you’re just going to stagger them. You’re going to put a block that has white in the
center next to a block that has color in the center. And you’re going to do that for
your whole row. And when you get ready to add your next row down here, you’re going
to stagger it so you’re going to show a block where the color comes together and then
the next block where the white comes together. So let’s look at the quilt one more time.
So here we’ve got, we’ve got color together, white together, color together, white and
then we stagger the next row and it makes that secondary design that’s in there. . So
we’ve got six across by six down. There’s only 36 blocks we used on this. And the reason
we did that was because there’s several in the pack that were just too light. Now
if that ever happens to you when you’re using your pack and you have a piece that
doesn’t show good contrast, well you can pull a few squares in from your own stash
or you can just make a smaller quilt like we did. So I hope you have fun making this.
It’s fun to see what happens when we try something new. And we just cut a half square
triangle right in half. And we hope you enjoyed this tutorial from the MSQC.