Hey everybody, it’s Rob from Man Sewing. And I’m super excited today to present our
tutorial. It is the easiest quilt I think I’ve ever made. We’re calling it the Slice
a Block. And we’re basically going to handle one block at a time and just inset a 1 ½
inch strip. So this is really fun for me because the fabrics we’re using today are from Studio
E. It’s called Peppered Cottons from Pepper Cory. And Pepper is a long-time friend of
mine. Pepper, I hope you love the quilt we made out of your fabrics, right? Oh, and then
of course, you’ll also need your 1 ½ inch skinny strips from Robert Kaufman. This is
just a solid black and there’s a bazillion of them. So the prep work was next to nothing
for today’s tutorial, right? So as we’re working, we are going to create independent,
individual blocks by cutting down a 10 by 10 and inserting, as you see, just one strip
of black. We’re going to make all of our blocks at once. And then we’re going to
the design wall or design table, however you like to work. And we’re going to randomly
organize our blocks and then stitch them back together. Super, super easy. So all I need
to do today is show you how to make that block. Let’s get started, right?
So I’m going to take one of my fabrics and I’m simply going to make a slice. Now I
say it’s simple but let’s think a little bit. Because we are going to eventually trim
these down to 9 ½ inch squares. So I really don’t want you making your slices right
at the edges. Give yourself about a two inch perimeter from either edge. So I’m going
to take this, and it doesn’t have to be a straight cut. It can be, as you see behind
me, an angular cut. If you’re new to quilting, keep your angles a little bit less because
it gives less stretch while you’re sewing, less bias. So ready. I’m going to slice
here. And now my approach is I’m going to bring one of those strips that I had from
the roll. And I’ve already been playing with this one so it’s a little short already.
Cut off your selvedge. Again, if you’re new to quilting, never use your selvedge in
your quilting unless you’re making an all selvedge quilt but we’ll get to that. Not
today. Then my other trick is I don’t start right on the edges because when I open this
up it may not quite make it. So I’m just going to cheat a little bit. We have plenty
of these black 1 ½ inch strips, ok? So I’ve just cheated a little bit past the beginning.
And I’m going to go over to my machine and we’re going to make a quarter inch seam
allowance . And this won’t take long. Ok?
And then what we’re going to do is we’re going to head over to my iron. And I’m going
to press this seam like this. I guess I’m pressing it
into the dark strip although I don’t know if it was really all that important. But check
your colors. It may be. You don’t want to get that bleed through. Now I’m going to
bring this right back over, not even trimming my tail yet. And I’m going to match these
up. So I’m making sure it is a square and not some sort of a rhombus or something like
that. So make sure it’s a square again or a rectangle technically because we’ve added
an inch and a half in there. I’m going to bring this strip right over here or this chunk
onto my strip. And I’m visually looking at the tips of the fabric here. But this is
why we’re going to trim down to 9 ½ so you don’t have to worry. But do spend a
moment and make sure you are as lined up as possible. Another quarter inch seam allowance
. Pepper Cory was actually one of the very first
demonstrators I ever saw the first year Michael Miller fabrics was out. And she’d done a
really neat kind of tone on tone neutrals line and gave a fantastic presentation. Went
on later to design fabric with Pepper so this is really fun for me to get to work with one
of her newer lines, ok?
Now before I even bother ironing, at this point, I’m going to go ahead and remove
that tail. We’re going to be able to use that for the next block again. Now we’re
going to press back into the darks. Let’s get some good quilt management going. So I’m
going to hold that seam up like that and then set it. The black fabric has a little bit
less give than the Peppered cottons. It’s got a really nice texture on it. So you might
find that the seams like working with batiks, gonna kind of do what they want to do. But
give your best there.
And now what we’re going to first do is clean up these outer edges. And I’m just
giving it a slight trim at first. But it will set for my true, ok? So I’ve cut this edge
here just like that. Now we’re going to rotate it. And now I’m using my square.
And I’m coming over here and I’m looking at 9 ½ on that side. And I want this as square
as possible. It is important that all your blocks are the same measurement. That way
you can put them together in any fashion you like. And it is important that they’re squares
and not rectangles so that you can rotate them in any fashion that you like. So that’s
my first set of 9 ½ . Now let’s do the other side. Again, trimming from my short
side first. And I’m actually lining up my line up here on my block. Slice. Rotate. And
now 9 ½ inches again. Just like that. Double checking the top, the bottoms. So this is
going to be a nice square block. Except for I hit the ruler. And away we go. Ok, so it
really is that easy. We’ve cut these down into our 9 ½ inch squares. And as you see,
I’ve done that for each and every block, like I said, so we can customize and creatively
organize our fabrics.
So as I said, all of your blocks, make them all, get them all pressed. And now the fun
begins. Because you’re just going to go through and start manipulating the layout.
And if you look at the quilt behind me, we like to use what we call the “Maverick”
block, that oddball block. That Man Sewing guy block, right? So at any rate, look across
this row here. And you’ll notice, this black strip is heading different than the others.
Reminds me of Sesame Street, right? So you come across here and in each row, I tried
to make one of those kind of a maverick block. The other thing I was doing is I was trying
to make sure, like in this section, I would not have rotated it so that the black came
through and then followed. Notice, almost none of the black lines touch when you’re
working throughout the quilt, and that just kind of helps, keeps it random looking and
a little bit more organized actually. Then from that point, these fabrics are wonderful
for your free motion machine quilting. You have a lot of wide open space. Very few seam
allowances so if you haven’t tried your own free motion machine quilting, I’m going
to encourage you to start on this quilt. It’s going to be fantastic. So once you have all
of your design put together, I added my three inch borders. That’s the black strips you
see over here. And then I put my backing down and then my batting down. And the quilt top,
I like to use curved safety pins to baste it all together. That keeps it all nice and
secure. And then I just go over to my standard sewing machine and spend some time doing my
free motion machine quilting. And we’re working on some quick tips right now for you
to give you a little bit more about the knowledge of the free motion machine quilting and the
body mechanics behind it. So that is the Slice a Block, high caffeinated mode today at Man
Sewing. I hope you love it. And we’ll see you next time.