Hi there. I'm Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts,
and back by popular demand, I have another stash buster quilt today.
It's fast, it's easy, and it's fat quarter friendly.
So stick with me, and I'll show you how to do it.
If you're new to my channel, I bring you tips, tricks, strategies, and stories
to help you make the quilt that You want to make.
I'd like to thank today's sponsor of this video, Skillshare.
So I was in a bind this week,
I knew I was going to be really busy today and I had no other time,
so yesterday,I had to make a quilt.
I had to get it all done in one day.
I was really tired. I've had a long week, so I was really thankful to have something fast and easy.
And this time, I decided to put on the timer to show you how long it took me.
This time I'm shopping my stash for nine fat quarters.
I'm looking for something fairly specific here.
I'm going for an analogous statement, three hues, three different saturations.
Now, if you don't know what I mean by analogous or saturation, go watch my series on colour theory.
I'm going to put a link up here.
I've chosen red, blue-violet, and blue.
You can choose the exact same ones, but on the other side with green,
or you can go all warm and do oranges.
You can just spin this whatever way you want.
I'm looking for a variety of patterns and I'm avoiding anything strongly directional.
Some of these blocks are going to get turned upside down.
And the fat quarters need to be the full width. Once the selvage is off, I need 21 and a half inches.
So just take a quick moment before you begin to iron out any creases.
When they've been in storage for some time, they can have some creases that are quite deep.
We want them flat because we're going to stack them.
Lay out your fabrics with the darkest along the top row,
put the matching medium colored ones in the next row,
and then the lightest in the bottom row.
And we're going to number them one to nine like so.
We're going to make three groups. Each group will have one of each colour and one of each level of saturation.
And just note before we go in here, that the blocks that we're cutting are not square.
They're going to be rectangles.
We are laying out our fabrics with the darkest on the bottom,
the medium in the middle, and the lightest on top.
So align your fabric along the selvages,
be sure to measure at least 22 inches.
Square up your fabric along the bottom,
then measure 16 inches along the selvage and cut.
Trim off the selvages, then measure 8 inches from the bottom
and cut, but don't move the fabric.
Then measure 10 3/4 inches and cut, and then measure 10 3/4 inches again and cut.
You now have four stacks of 10 3/4 by 8 inch rectangles.
Make sure you have a sharp blade. I've just switched mine, so mine's brand new.
Put the four stacks, one on top of each other.
Take your ruler, and measure in 1 3/4 inches and cut.
So take the top piece from the left pile and put it on the bottom.
Now do the same with Group B and Group C.
Before I start, especially if I'm doing a fast project, I will change my
needle just to be sure I don't have any issues.
I also make a wedge out of masking tape to align my chain pieces against, and
I make sure I have a stack of 2 1/2 inch squares for my headers and enders.
I pair up my pieces as I go, and I just chain piece them.
It helps to have some nice, lively
music on in the background to keep you going through these chain pieces.
Now when you press, you can press towards the big piece, you can press towards
the small piece, the only thing is, keep it consistent. And if you haven't watched my
video on a really good ironing technique, I'm going to put the link up here, because
this goes together so smoothly and you need no pins when your corners are nice and sharp.
Now stack them again, keeping them as square as possible. Also ensure that
they're in the right order, darkest, medium, light, darkest, medium, light. Then take your
ruler and cut through the whole pile at 4 1/4 inches.
Take the top fabric from the left pile and put it on the bottom.
Just to be sure, note that you've got one of every colour.
Then repeat the other two groups, B and C.
Pair the left side with the right side, sew them all together
in one continuous chain.
I used the header piece between the different groups of fabrics.
This helped mark the change between the fabrics
and I could snip off the long chain, so that it wasn't so bulky.
Press in the same direction that you pressed before.
And now you should have 36 blocks.
Now the layout, so we're going to take the blocks that have the darkest shade of the hue,
and put them in the top row, then the medium ones in the second row, and the
lightest ones in the bottom row.
Now before we go into the block layout, let me talk to you about Skillshare.
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in design, business, and more. I've been a member for about a year, and I'm always on
there learning new things. I'm quite addicted to their lettering series, all sorts of different
things on calligraphy. But this month particularly, I'd been working on my filmmaking skills.
So I've been on Skillshare a lot, doing different classes, how to improve my photography, how
to improve my editing, and how to improve my sound. If you have a premium membership,
you have unlimited access to all their programs, so it doesn't matter what you want to learn
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Skillshare is super affordable. It's only $10 per month. Join more than 7 million creators
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So we're going to lay out the blocks in seven rows of five blocks each.
It is not random, it follows this pattern and we'll have one block leftover.
Having a preplanned layout means I can just line the blocks up and stick them on the wall.
And just watch this, in the second, fourth and sixth row, we are rotating the blocks.
Now, we're not rotating the entire row. We're rotating block by block.
If you sew the entire row and flip it, you get a totally different result.
Now for some reason taking the blocks from the wall to my machine, I am challenged.
I cannot believe how I can muck it up. So often blocks get flipped, I sew the wrong side.
So I've developed this system to stop that from happening.
In the top left corner of all the blocks in column one and column three, I'm putting this small little dab tape.
At the top of column one, marking it with T1, and at the top columnthree I'm marking it with T2.
Now at the top right corner of all of the blocks in the fifth column,
I'm writing the letters A through G.
Now, I grab them from the top and I make A pile, and I take them over to my sewing machine.
So this little dab of tape is telling me what direction these block should be oriented in.
And just simply sew.
I sew from the top of the pile down,
and I use a leader in between the stacks, just to separate the groups.
I take the stack T2 and I add the fifth column to it.
And then I sew the stack T1 to T2.
And because they're clearly marked, I matched them up along the correct edge.
And now I have this wonderful lattice. Because I put these little pieces of tape
on the top right corners, now I can just simply sew these rows together
and I won't mix them up.
The only seams you need to line up when sewing the rows, are where the blocks meet.
I'm not pinning, because I find with the crisp ironing that I do, that the edges
just nicely lock together.
So many of you asked, how do I put it together?
So I'm going to show you my process.
Now I'm not going to show you how I make it an Afterquilt,
I'm actually going to do a full video, part of my scrap series,
and it should be ready probably around September.
I'm getting tired, I'm getting cranky, I'm getting sore.
Luckily, my family made me dinner.
I did take a short walk with my dog, but I'm now back at it, sandwiching this quilt up.
If this project was bigger, I would be doing it on the wall of a fire escape in my condo,
but because this is small, I'm going to do it on my counter.
I go outside, I spray the back, and then I tape it to the counter with the masking tape.
Go outside, I spray the batting, I come in and put it down,
and then I'd bring the top down.
And I fiddle with this probably for a good 15 minutes,
making sure that I have my horizontal lines in the front, corresponding to the horizontal lines in the back.
I use the tape to take the top down to the back,
and then I roll it up and I take it upstairs.
Now it's late, I want to quilt this quickly,
but I also want the quilting to match the vibe of the quilt.
I'm just doing straight meandering lines.
Now I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but let's just call it straight-ish.
I've turned my stitch length to 3.0, and I've lowered pressure on my presser foot.
Now I have a tendency to push my work here, so I'm trying very carefully just to let the feed dogs do the work.
Each time, I start at the top of the quilt and meander to the bottom.
And work from the middle to the right.
So it's midnight. I trimmed the quilt up as fast as I can.
Now, do you remember my video on scrap management,
where I told you to have some pre-made bindings ahead of time with your scraps?
I am so thankful I have some pre-made bindings right now.
I'm choosing blue because I'm wanting the red to stand out a bit in my quilt.
If I chose red, yes, it would all match, it would be fine,
but it would just diminish the red a little bit and I liked the way it pops.
I have machine bound this quilt and I can go to bed.
So final tally.
And this was the only scrap I had left.
And I managed 14 four patches to go with my scrap blocks.
I started and stopped the clock as I moved my camera around,
but I'm sure I probably could have shaved 30 minutes off
if I didn't have to worry about filming while making this quilt.
And if I didn't make an Afterquilt or have to piece the batting,
I probably could have shaved another 60 minutes off.
I could've also started it earlier, so I didn't have to have the pace so relentless.
But I'm very, very pleased with the results and I'll be very proud to give it.
If you would like the pattern to this stash buster quilt, you can download
it from my website at justgetitdonequilts.com.
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So take care and I'll see you next time.