(bright cheerful music) - Layer cakes.
They're a fast and easy way to buy fabric.
Colours and the patterns all coordinate.
So why is it so tricky to sew them all together?
Here are nine fast and easy quilt blocks
that you can sew with 10-inch squares,
and stay to the end where I reveal a cool trick
on how to pull it all together
and make some unique and interesting designs.
So stick with me and I'll show you.
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Hi, I'm Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts.
I give you tips, tricks, and strategies
to help you make the quilt that you want to make.
And if you enjoy this video, I would appreciate it
if you hit that (graphic chimes)
subscribe button.
My first five StashBuster videos were all based
on fat quarters and viewers kept sending me these emails.
"Can you do one for layer cakes?"
And I thought, well, challenge accepted.
Four months and many trials and errors later,
I now have a quick and easy system
so that you can have your layer cake and eat it too.
So last week in my "Deep Dive on Pre-Cuts,"
I found that there are many issues with layer cakes.
And if you want to watch my video on pre-cuts,
I'm going to put the link in the notes below.
Sure, they are a nice manageable size
and you get a complete line so you know all the colours match
and you know the fabrics work together.
But I quickly found out that not all layer cakes are equal.
Some layer cakes have 40 pieces, some have 42,
some have only 20, some have only a couple
of duplicate fabrics, some have two, three, four,
or even five copies of the same fabric.
And the fabric is precious.
At a 30% premium, you don't want to have any wastage.
I did a lot of thinking and a lot of sorting
and a lot more thinking and a lot more sorting.
Honestly, I think my brain almost broke.
Then one day the solution just flashed before me.
I was going to let symmetry do all the heavy lifting.
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So for this method, you need an even number
of rows and an even number of columns
so that you have four equal quadrants to work with.
And to make symmetry work for me,
I'll need four copies of the same block,
one for each quadrant.
And to figure out how many block sets I need,
I take the total number of blocks and divide it by four.
And in this example, I will have 48 blocks,
which means I need 12 block sets.
If I had chosen a layout 8 by 10,
I would need 20 block sets.
And if my layout was 6 by 6, I would need nine.
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Here are nine fast and easy blocks
that have little to no wastage.
The 1st block has no piecing at all.
This is for those colourful big hero prints
that we don't want to cut.
Block number 2 is the Rail Fence with two fabrics
and Block number 3 is the Rail Fence with four fabrics.
We have the large 4-Patch
and we have the small 4-Patch.
We have the HST Block and then we have the small HST Block.
And I've also done a video on how to make the perfect HST,
and I'll link that one in the notes.
We have the Flying Geese Block.
I've also done a video on Flying Geese and how to make them,
and I'll link that in the notes.
And lastly, we have the Quarter Square Triangle Block.
Now you'll quickly realise
that there's more variations of these blocks.
You can change their orientation.
You can take a two-color block and make it four colour,
and you can even combine block elements to make your own
and play with the orientation if you feel like it.
Now I have instructions on cutting
and everything to do with this
in a handout that you can download from my website,
Just Get It Done Quilts. (bright cheerful music)
Next, we are auditioning our fabrics
and it's just as simple as folding them up
against one another and seeing how they play
against one another and deciding on a quilt block.
So I am using fabric here from three different layer cakes,
just to illustrate what different block layouts you can use.
So don't panic if you see fabrics from different lines.
Depending on the number of squares in your layer cake,
you might need to add in some squares
from your stash.
First, arrange all your fabric by value.
You've seen me do do this before,
but it's a very good first step.
Just take a black and white photo.
It doesn't need to be exact.
You just want the darkest ones in one pile
and the lightest ones in the other pile.
This is just so as you're making your blocks,
you can choose from both piles and get the highest contrast.
These choices are made in the moment as you move along.
So in my handout, I have this little guide
that tells you how many fabrics you need
of each for the block.
So for this one, you need two pairs
of two different fabrics.
On this one, you need four fabrics the same.
And on this one, you need four different fabrics.
So we have actually seen this pile of fabric before.
When I was talking about organising your UFOs,
this was one of the ones that I stopped making,
I didn't like what I was doing,
and I put the fabric back into my stash.
I just love the fabric, and I especially love this one.
And I do not want to cut these up.
So I actually have four of this one.
There's two with a sort of a red background,
and there's two with a green background.
So that's great.
I'm going to keep that as one pile.
I have this fabric which I really love,
and I have two of them.
So I could do the half and the half,
or I could do the HST, and that's another set.
And I just fold it over to remind myself what I'm doing.
One of the fabrics I really liked
and I bought the fabric line for
was this beautiful multi-coloured brown.
But I only have one copy of it.
I have to use one of the ones that have four for this one.
I'm going to grab two from this pile.
And I guess I'll grab a red one from this one.
I'm just going to fold them.
As you can see this one, it doesn't really change that much
from this to this.
And I'm just going to make a simple 4-patch out of this one.
I've got good contrast between all four colours
and I've got good contrast in the pattern.
I'll probably go like this.
I'll probably lay it out like that,
and that's my first set of four.
This fabric has strong directional elements
and this solid fabric has an ombre effect.
And I'm lucky enough that I have two of them,
because I think they're a great candidate
for the Rail Fence Block.
So you're choosing the best block to go with your fabric.
You can use all of one type of block if you choose,
you can use a variation of them.
But the key is you're grabbing four fabrics for each block.
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So you are making four of every block,
but this is the trick.
Each block is going to have a different orientation.
So in the block pattern I have provided,
I show you how the layout is slightly different
for every single block.
I show you where each one of the fabrics should lie.
And I always lay out my fabrics before I sew.
This means I make sure all the directional fabrics
are going in the right direction,
and I have everything in its proper spot.
And in my in-between stages, I always lay them back out
because I am just shocked at how easily I can mix these up.
I turn them upside down, I flip them around.
It's just amazing.
So I always do in-between layouts just to be sure
I'm sewing them in the right orientation.
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So I pin them to keep my light blocks together,
and soon you have a stack of your 12 piles.
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So I have made three block sets for three different quilts.
The monochromatic orange blocks,
the complimentary Christmas blocks,
and this layer cake called On the Farm.
As assortments go,
this one is by far the most challenging.
It has red, it has a mint blue, it has a green,
and it has an orange, and I have a huge range of value.
And the assortment only gave me one
of this bright yellow and orange square.
And that's going to draw the attention
no matter where it's put.
So you start at the centre (bright cheerful music)
and layout your fabrics so that each block
lies in the identical spot in each quadrant.
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And then I take a picture of the layout.
(camera shutter clicks) I usually do
two to three layouts, just so I have a choice.
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If you like the layout, then you sew it all together.
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Now there's an easier way to do this
than physically throwing them out on a floor
or on a design wall.
Now you've heard me talk about PreQuilt before.
The quilt that's on my wall
in my home studio was made with PreQuilt.
And of course I did the PreQuilt Challenge
last year with Laura.
So in the notes below, I have a link
to this master copy of the No Fail Layer Cake layout.
And this has a master of all the blocks
that I've talked about and a number of variations of them.
Just click this infinity button in the corner
and press delete, (keyboard key clicking)
and you have a clean work area.
I like to edit the blocks so they're similar
to the ones that I've actually made.
And I delete any ones that I'm not using.
Then I place them one at a time just randomly
in the top left quadrant.
There's no particular order.
I'm just putting 'em all out.
Then we want to click on this magic wand
and ta-da! (quilt chimes)
And if you don't like it, you can rotate the blocks
you can move the blocks around,
and then you can hit (quilt chimes)
this magic wand as many times as you want
until you get a design that you like.
And I think I'll go with this one.
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You could also reverse engineer this
and make a design that you like,
then make your blocks to match that.
You can join PreQuilt for free.
This allows you one free design
that you can download and print.
And if you haven't checked it out recently,
they've added triangle layouts and layouts on point.
Plus they have their own YouTube channel
full of tutorials on how to use it.
This video is not sponsored or affiliated with PreQuilt.
It's just a tool I find very useful.
(bright cheerful music)
It's amazing the results when you let symmetry
do the work for you.
And because of the secondary designs that appear,
I can do some very interesting work with the quilting.
I'm not sure if I'm going to do this on my sewing machine
or I'm going to wait 'til I have access
to a longarm, stay tuned.
Now you can truly use this method
with all sizes of blocks.
So handouts on all these blocks are available
from my website at Just Get It Done Quilts.
I'll leave a link in the notes below.
You can also download any of my other
free Stashbuster patterns
here as well.
So if you like this video, please give it a thumbs up.
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and of course my website at JustGetItDoneQuilts.com.
So take care and I'll see you next time.
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