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? Now these blocks to me
look just like eights. But you know what they are, this is a disappearing hourglass quilt.
Another one of those fun ones that we like and it looks like the shape of the eight so
we’re calling it Disappearing Hourglass Crazy Eight. So to make this quilt what you’re
going to need is one pack of ten inch squares. And we have used Sandbar Batiks by Kathy Engle
for Island Batik. And you can see, a beautiful line, a lot of color in there. You’re also
going to need a packet of ten inch squares of background fabric. And we’ve used this
black. If you buy yardage it’s going to be about 3 ¾ yards and that also includes
this first inner border right here. The inner border of itself was about ¾ yards. So the
outer border out here is a six inch border and you’re going to need 1 ¾ yards for
that. For the back, this is a big quilt, and so you’re going to need about eight yards,
let me make sure, 8 ½ yards. And it makes this beautiful back right here. This is what
we put on ours. You’re going to have vertical seams. So you’re going to have a little
bit left over at the bottom because the way you have to stack it together. So you can
make pillow cases or something out of that. This quilt is 82 by 93 so it’s a nice big
quilt. And, and if you decide to go with your backing, if you decide to go with the 108
you’re just going to need three yards of a 108.
Alright so let me show you how to make this because this is just one of those disappearing
blocks and it’s just easy and fun and at the end of the day it looks like you worked
really hard. So basically what we’re going to do to start is we’re going to take our
black square like this and our colored square and we’re going to put those right sides
together. Now you’ll notice with most batiks there really isn’t a wrong or right side
and with most solids there really isn’t a wrong or right side. So you can’t really
get this wrong. We’re going to lay them on top of each other like this. And we are
going to sew all the way around them, a quarter of an inch. Now I have one here that’s already
done and you can see that right here. You can see our stitch line on here. So now what
we’re going to do is we’re going to take our ruler and we’re going to cut it diagonally
side to side. This is one of the reasons I love our ruler is because it’s a, it’s
a five by 15 and it just lays perfectly right across there. Don’t worry if you have a
little pleat. Don’t worry if you, you know, if, if, if you’re, I mean just put your
ruler on there corner to corner and. People say all the time, do you, do you stop and
pivot, do you sew right off. I generally sew right off. And I don’t really worry about
what’s happening in the corner too much because what I want to do is I want, I want
to have four of these.
So once you get your four pieces cut then we need to press them open. Now just a little
note on this, as long as your quarter inch seams are consistent, now what that means
is the quarter inch doesn’t have to be perfect, but your seams have to be the same on all
four sides, these blocks will come out the same. And so what we’re going to do now
is we are going to go ahead and press these open. And to do that I’m going to lay, I’m
actually going to lay my dark on the top like this and iron them back like this so that
my seam stays to the dark side. So this one I’m going to have to change this one around
because I kind of finger pressed that a little bit and I’m just going to roll that. You
know once you get a seam pressed one way it doesn’t not like to go the other way. So
let’s see if we can just make that one behave and this one. And then we’re going to do
these two as well. And I’m going to stack these up here. Alright so I’m used to pulling
the color up because my background is usually a lighter background. So this is kind of fun.
It’s kind of tweaking in my brain when I show you this. Alright so now we’re just
going to press these so they lay nice and flat. And we are going to lay these in an
hourglass format. Now the easiest way for me to do that is to put them together so that
I have two darks coming in opposite sides and then two lights coming in on this side
like this. And then what we’re going to do is we’re going to take these to the sewing
machine and we are going to sew these two seams right here, you know, these two seams
a quarter of an inch. And so I’m just going to lay these over here and I kind of like
to start from the middle because your fabric is flat right there. And then I just kind
of make this edge fit and behave back here. Alright let’s do this one. And then you
just kind of, you can feel those seams nesting right here.
Alright now what we’re going to do is we are going to open these up and make sure they
go back into an hourglass like this and then we’re going to sew these down. Alright so
line up those edges. Line up that middle. The middle matters so make sure your middle
is nice and flush and that it just lays together real nice. You know there are certain things
that when I’m sewing I’ll be like, oh this is going to matter so make sure you do
those things. And that center seam is one on this pattern. Alright so let’s lay this,
iron this nice and flat. Now to make this block, what I do at this point is I measure
my block, I find out how wide it is and I divide that measurement by three. So I know
that this block is 12 ¾ and so I’m going to be cutting this at, well I could come in
from the side and cut 4 ¼ but I prefer my block, I prefer to measure on either side
of that center seam. So I’m at 2 ⅛ from that center seam. And we’re going to cut
it at 2 ⅛ on all four sides. But you know what I”m going to be smart, let me get my
mat, my rotating mat over here because this makes it so much easier. So I’m laying this
on here, my rotating mat. Now if you don’t have a rotating mat remember that even if
you have a little, a small mat, if you just pick it up and turn that, that mat becomes
a rotating mat. So it’s way easier to turn your mat than it is to try and rearrange all
of your pieces. So let’s just go ahead, we’re going to go ahead and cut this. And
I”m just going to turn my mat and lay it down. Again I’m cutting 2 ⅛ from that
center seam and this side. We’re to the third side here.
And everybody has their favorite ways of doing this you know. Some cut, you know, side to
side and then top to bottom. I just go right around it and here’s my last side. Alright
so I’m going to cut here. Now if you ever get a seam that’s like a little wonky just
remember that all these blocks are going to work independently of each other so you can
actually cut and you know just make sure that your, your blocks are about the same size
and your seam stays lined up. So you can cut here, you know, eek your ruler a little bit,
cut again, eek your ruler.
Alright so now this is the fun part because these are all, these can all work independently
of each other. And so the block we’re going for right here is this one. And once I get
one of these blocks done, wait it goes this way. Literally I set it in front of me so
I can make sure that they’re all the same. So we’re going to look at this and first
thing we’re going to do right here is we’re going to swap these two like this. And then
we’re going to swap these two. Alright now we haven’t turned them to the outside, we’ve
just swapped each side. I’m going to turn this one like this in the middle. And then
I’m going to look at these side pieces. Now only two of them stay out and two stay
in so we’re going to turn these in like this and that gives us our crazy eight shape.
Now when I’m ready to sew these together I just slide this over by my sewing machine
and I do this row right here from the top to the bottom. And so I’m just going to
lay these on top of each other and I’m going to sew a quarter inch seam. And I”m just
going to sew straight down, don’t take them off and then I’m going to add this next
one. This is an easy way to chain piece this block. And then again you want to make sure
that this middle line lines up right here. And then one more down here. Then what I’m
going to do is I’m going to flip this around like this and open these up and I know now
I need to add my bottom so I went through top to bottom. Now we’re going to go in
reverse the other way and so we’re just going to add these onto here like this. I
hope that made sense. This is just how I do it. You can actually sew them together whatever
makes sense in your brain but this is how I do it. Make sure my middle lines up right
here and then my last one is right here. And on these corner ones you want to look and
make sure that you have sewed on the one you’re putting on matches that one. So this will
go with the little corner into the middle. Let me get this thread over here. And line
that up. Now we should have this ready to go so we can just sew these rows together
like this. So we’re going to open it and look at it again. And again you can see the
eight pattern on there. So now I’m just going to fold this over. And you can iron,
you can press here if you want. I’m going to press, I’m going to sew first and then
press because I want to be able to manipulate my seams and decide which way I want them
to go. So my middle seams are going to go in and my outer seams are going to go out.
And then we make sure that middle lines up and then you line up this block too. I actually
really enjoy when there’s a lot of pieces to nest together because it keeps me, you
know, it keeps my block looking really nice because I’m matching all the points. And
then we’re going to do this over here. Do the same thing. And then I’m going to make
this little piece match up and then my next one. And then this one right here. Make sure
that seam is laying toward the middle. You know when you do these things a lot you’ll
get into a habit of this. For this quilt you’re going to do this block 42 times and so you’re
going to get really good at this by the end. So let us go ahead and press this now. And
I like to press from the top to make sure there’s no folds or pleats. Folds and pleats
are going to change the size of your block. Alright so isn’t this a pretty little block?
It’s just a great little block. And once you make your block, like I said before, you’re
just going to make 42 of these. Then we’re just going to put them together. So let me
move my mat here so I can show you this.
So basically there’s a couple of things you want to look for when you put them together.
You want to make sure, at least for this quilt that you’ve got your blocks oriented the
right direction and to tell that these should be, you know if you get your blocks so you’ve
got big sections of black or big sections of white then you’ve got one up right and
one sideways. So you want to make sure that these come together this is going to form
a four patch when these come together. Let me show you how that looks. So we’ve got
this one here and this one here. Make sure that’s going the right direction. So see
how that forms a little four patch. Here it is in the quilt right here. So let’s look
at how I put these together because there’s no sashing or anything you’re just literally
going to lay this block on top of each other and sew a quarter of an inch down the side.
We’ve got six across here and seven down. We made the whole middle of the quilt, added
our 2 ½ inch border. By the way I don’t say this very often but when you add borders
you want to add your sides and then your top. And then you’re ready to add your sides
again and your top. That’s just a general, general quilting rule. And it’s one of those
things that we get used to doing but sometimes we forget to pass that on. It doesn’t really
matter in the scheme of things, you know, so if you’ve made quilts all your life and
done it differently it doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things. It saves a little
bit of fabric but it’s just a, it’s just one of those general rules so just keep that
in mind.
Anyway this is a fun quilt. It’s quick and easy. Don’t be afraid to play with the layout.
Don’t be afraid if you want a bigger quilt, add sashing. Don’t be afraid to see what
happens if you turn them, you know, what secondary thing appears. This is my favorite part. People
always ask me what’s your favorite quilt. It’s not the quilt that’s my favorite
part, it’s the doing something like this and going, oh that’s my favorite part, that
moment, you know that creative moment when you see something that wasn’t there before.
So we hope you enjoyed this tutorial on the Disappearing Hourglass Crazy Eight quilt from
the MSQC.