The market research is in. That’s right. The facts are here. Most quilters like cats.
And all cats love quilts. So Moda came out with this really fun line called Catnip. And
I’ve used it in this cool quilt behind me you see here to make these crazy cat stars.
Let’s get started.
It may be a bit easier to see that crazy cat on point there that forms up our star. But
ya we’re going to use a really fun new fabric line called Catnip by Moda in a pre cut pack
here and a little bit of yardage to make this really fun quilt you see here behind me. Now
let’s look at the quilt before we dive into the supplies so you really understand what
you’re building. We’re doing all of this work you see basically four times. So it’s
just a quadrant based quilt. So this is one and the same thing is duplicated here and
just divided by some sashings. And it’s super, super easy to make. We’re just going
to use half square triangles, some snowballed corners and some regular squares for our construction.
But I’ll take you through it step by step. Let’s start with those supplies, right?
So like I said there’s that Catnip that I love so much from Moda. So I’ve used a
bunch of this packet here. But I also went ahead and grabbed some of the Honeybun white.
These are the 1 ½ inch strips. And I’ve also used some of the black yardage. Now this
yardage actually, as you can see from the top here, is one of the prints that’s in
the pre cut. So there’s a square of this in here also. But for the yardage on the top
of the quilt to make the parts and pieces I’ve used about ¾ of a yard. I also have
it on the back and the binding so 2 ¼ yards will do the whole project for you. Now we’re
going to go ahead and address this in a few different steps. I’m just going to put my
little reference cat up here for a little bit. And I’ve already started taking apart
one of my pre cuts, so I’m going to ask you to do the same thing with me right now.
What I want to do is I want to get all of the black squares separated out of here because
we’re going to use our black squares from the pre cut package as our snowball corners.
And if you don’t know what a snowball is I’m going to show you in a second. Don’t
you worry about it. It’s just a fun quilt term, ok? So I’ve removed the black and
I’m going to use the whites, the creams, the grays as my pre cut for the rest of the
units for the half square triangles and things as I go through. I’m cutting my yardage
here that I have into a couple different size strips. So we’re going to have some 4 ½
inch strips that will be sub cut into 4 ½ inch squares. And we also have five inch strips
that will be cut into five inch squares. And like I said let’s get walked through there.
Let’s get all of our hardest sewing done first today, what do you say? The half square
triangles and they’re so easy, it will be a snap.
But what I want you to do is I want you to match up one of the squares you cut from your
yardage of the black. So this is the five inch square. And I want you to match it up
with one of the white or cream of the pre cut squares. So for these kind of half square
triangles what we’re going to do is we’re going to take out a sharpie or a pencil. And
on the lighter colored fabric I’m going to draw a straight line from point to point.
Just a little light faint straight line from point to point. That is going to be a cut
line down the road. So I’m not too worried about the ink showing up. I’m going to make
sure my squares are nice and aligned. And now I’m going to sew a quarter inch seam
allowance on both sides of that drawn line. I have cotton thread in my machine today.
And I’m just going to go ahead and look at the edge of my presser foot as my seam
allowance. It’s a little bit wider. I’m just going to cheat just a skosh there. Lock
this in. Take your time and sew a real nice straight line. Lock that in. You can cut that
thread. And then you can just go on over and do the same thing on the other side of that
line. Real easy but great practice. Ok, so now that that has been stitched, oh I better
warm up my iron over here before I cut because we’re going to want to press these. So I’m
going to use that ruler just like I did to draw the line but now I’m going to cut the
line. And I really find it’s best to do it this way. It keeps everything nice and
secure. Yes I could have just cut the line but then I would have been dealing with these
bias edges and a little bit less secure. And I just find that this works the best for me.
You can do it however you like. I’m going to go ahead and press to the dark side by
holding that dark piece of fabric up in the air. And what you’ll see here is that the
squares we were just handling have yielded exactly the same two half square triangles.
But if you look through me at the quilt behind you’ll see those cat ears which these pieces
make really aren’t using the same fabrics. So I won’t even bother pressing this one
right now. I will later. But I’m going to use this one. And I’m going to use a combination
from some of my other pieces that I have laid out here to put those together as I bring
all of my blocks back in, ok? So you need two of the half square triangles for the cat
head block itself.
We also want to talk about, like let’s say, you know sometimes your half square triangles
didn’t come out real square. And I was just going to dive into the square concept here
but it reminded me. We really want our precision and our accuracy so maybe you haven’t seen
this trick before. Once you’ve pressed this out I do really want to go ahead and square
the block down to 4 ½ inches. Now most rulers will have these really cool 45 degree lines
on them. And those 45 degree lines can be utilized along that seam allowance. So the
first cut I would do is I’m going to see this here and I’m going to trim this line
so I have a nice zero mark like this. I moved to make sure my head wasn’t in the way there.
So I’ve got this line. And it’s based right now just on this one diagonal, ok? Now
I can move that straight line over and I can cut a perfect 4 ½. Except I almost cut a
perfect 4 ¼ didn’t I? I knew something didn’t look in there. Ok so I’m looking
at my line and on the cut the that I made. To now trim the other side. You may go back
to your diagonal if you would like to to keep that squared up. You probably should, right?
So that’s going to in there, now this is up here. And my line over here is at 4 ½
. Let me make sure I’ve got this all perfect. So I’m giving you a good example. Ok and
I’m going to trim this down. So using that diagonal to keep things square. I believe
this is an old method called the trim to true. But when you’re going to mount in these
half square triangles up against perfectly cut squares we probably better make sure they’re
as crisp as possible. So that’s a real good way to get that half square triangle squared
up if it looks like it wasn’t square for you. And again do all of your sewing of your
half square triangles first so that they’re all set aside and stacked so you can mix and
match your color choices, ok? And now let’s talk about that snowball square.
So you’re going to need another one of your pieces from your pre cut packet. And you’re
going to want one of those squares that you had set aside, right? So let’s use one that’s
not our polka dot so you can really see what we’re doing. This is one of the pre cuts
squares. We need to divide that into quarters as well. . So this is a five inch square so
that means 2 ½ inches for the quarter. And I’m going to cut it here. And I’m not
going to move it. And I’m just going to turn and I’m going to cut it here. Because
you’re going to need these smaller squares to create those snowballs. So you have those
four pieces like that now. Some folks will take and press these things with the right
sides out like this. And then what we’re going to do is we can take this and it’s
going to fit basically onto this corner like yay. So when I fold this open this here becomes
the sewn line. Other folks will take and draw their line. I prefer the drawn line
because I think it reads a little straighter here and I’m not dealing with this fold.
Either way what I need to know is this is something that might, these snowballs are
kind of new for me so I really like to go slow, right? I want to make sure I get it
right. This is going to be sitting on here just like this. It’s going to fill in this
corner here. I’m going to sew across this line so therefore if I’m going to build
this this way I’m going to lay this just right here just the same. And I’m going
to sew across this line, ok? So until you get your orientations really quick don’t
rush over to the sewing machine with a whole pile of them or you might have to try out
a new seam ripper or something like that. So now we’re just going to sew right over
that line. Back stitch and cut your threads. And until you’re a perfectionist with this,
right? You can come over here and look and make sure that it presses open correctly like
that. The other thing we could have just done was go ahead and we do always want to finish
by trimming off the quarter inch seam allowance down in here. Ok, like yay, like that. Ok,
so of course you’ll have several of those squares available.
And then the last thing we would have done for this piece or any of the other pieces,
I was getting so excited to get that last square in here is to square it down. So remember
our half square triangles have finished now at 4 ½. I asked you to make your other strips
at 4 ½ to make our squares. So therefore our snowball also needs to be cut down to
4 ½ as well. So what we’re going to do is we’re just going to take this. This is
the important part of the piece so this edge is a true edge in my eye. And I’m going
to come to my 4 ½ mark. And I’m going to trim it this way. Then I’m going to rotate
it. Looking at my 4 ½ again. And I’m making sure that this line down here is nice and
straight as well. And of course at the top. I cut this down. And now my snowballed square
is also the 4 ½ that my half square triangles were.
So let’s bring in two of those. And these ones will be different. And when all goes
well I love it when all three of the white or the gray prints or cream prints are different
shades, different prints themselves. So to build out our cat head this is one of those
4 ½ inch squares. So that’s why I had you cut the 4 ½ inch strip and then pre cut down
or sub cut down your own 4 ½ inch square so that you wouldn’t have to keep trimming
later on. So from here your opposite square with the snowball is going to come in just
like this. And then the snowball is opposite from the black square. And then these squares
come in here to form the ears. So they come in and you just rotate them until they fit
right. Or you’ve got the long side, the long side and then the long side up against
that snowball corner. Now those are all together. And as I’m looking at this I’m thinking,
maybe I don’t want those lines going through here so let’s just swap this one out for
another one so that all looks unique, right? Because I like that look. And now we’re
going to go ahead and assemble these.
So I’m going to first assemble these two squares on that seam just like this. And I
only flipped it over to manage that seam allowance. For no other reason, if you saw my hands flip
it over there was no special trick there. After 20 some years of making quilts I’m
kind of particular about the way I do it I guess, ok? Obviously a bit of a messy work
environment is part of it which is fun because I have a really tidy studio in between quilts.
But during that quilt, my goodness, things get a little out of control. Let’s make
that seam come together too. Some of your squares might have a little stretch because
of the way that they were sewn together on the bias so anytime you’re doing patchwork
do your best not to push or pull on your seams. Just let the feed system of the machine work
as it needs to. I’m going to just push this one up against the dark, pressing to the dark
side. However if I’m really managing my seam allowances I will often try to make it
so that these two seams are now going opposite directions on the back side. I don’t know
if I did it this time or not, let’s see. No they happen to be heading the same direction
right now. If you ever want to plan for that you can. Sometimes it matters to me sometimes
it doesn’t. I’m going to mount these together just like this. I’m still going to secure
that that seam is right there. I’ve got a good pinch on it as I line up those first
two corners. And that’s just always a good way to help our patchwork look and stitch
together nice and accurate. Let’s back stitch these seams as well. Oh this is going terrific.
So once you have all four of the individual parts made, you have technically created for
yourself another cat head block. So as I’m pressing out my squares here I see my cat
head come to life and it’s super, super fun, ok? So there it is again. And I want
to start building out the quadrants. Now your brain might want to start in the center of
the quilt at the star but it really doesn't. Let’s build our quadrant. So you’re going
to need four of your cat heads. I have three others already made. And what we’re going
to do is we’re just going to lay all of these like arrows in the same direction now.
So as I come in here. See how they’re going to the same direction like this, even though
the center of the quilt they form the star itself. So these go here and a couple of little
quick layout things we could look at. So as I’m looking, see how this cream and this
cream are the same print. And this white and this white are the same print. I don’t love
that so if I have an opportunity to mix things around a little bit, get things a little further
apart, I could, I would, I should maybe. So I do a couple of momentary looks and glances
at the quadrant. And then just like our four squares we’re going to sew these together,
these two, then these two. . And then we’ll sew this seam together this way.
Now let’s look at the quilt one more time so you can really see how it builds itself.
So basically what we were just working on all of us together was one of these quadrants
here, right? This is all of those heads heading in the same direction. This is that star I
was talking about here in the center. Don’t focus on that. Now also we’ve put in some
of those skinny strips for sashing. So the easiest way to do that is go ahead and take
one of your quadrants and sew a skinny strip on to the length of the quadrant. And then
put on the other quadrant here. Do the same down below. Quadrant, skinny strip, quadrant
this way. And then you can join them with one long strip that goes all the way through.
That’s called sashing like that. And I’ve done the same on these outer edges. Those
are also the 1 ½ inch strips. And then the black that you see right over here on this
outer border, that was cut at 2 ½ inches wide. And then there’s the binding that’s
put in on top of that as well. So you build up your whole quilt.
And this is such a fun and easy quilt. Maybe it’s a first quilt for one of you at home.
So some of the ways you can machine quilt this is of course one of my favorites is quilt
by check. Send it to the good folks at MSQC. They’ll quilt it for you. You could do stitch
in the ditch because it’s all really squares, right? So you could run your walking foot
with a real nice thread that’s just invisible like a gray or a white or something that just
falls in there real simple. You could free motion this thing like crazy. So the quilting
you can really do just about whatever you want to do with it. It makes it really fun.
So sometimes it is really a blessing to be inspired by the simplicity of name of a fabric
line. To see something fun dancing around in the background elements of your quilt and
then go after it with charge and really get excited. Like I said, the facts are out there.
Most quilters love cats. And all cats love quilts. And I hope you feel the same way about
us right here at Man Sewing.
Thanks for being a Man Sewing fan. It’s great to have you out there encouraging me
to create fantastic new content. If you’ve missed any of the videos we’ve got links
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