Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. And I’ve got a great
project for you today. Take a look at this quilt behind me. Isn’t this fun? Now this
is a super easy block and I can hardly wait to show you how to do it. So we’re calling
this Diamond Terrace because the way the block sets up and you will see that as we go along.
So to make this quilt you’re going to need one roll of 2 ½ inch strips. And we’ve
used Amour by Monique Jacobs for Maywood Studios. And it is a gorgeous line of fabrics. You’re
going to need about four yards of background fabrics and that’s all of this and this
first border out here. And we gave you yardage because it’s cheaper. You could always use
2 ½ inch strips if you have them laying around like I do because that’s what I use. But
for yardage you’re going to need four yards. This outer border out here is a nice big six
inch border. And you’re going to need a yard and ¾ I think for the outer border,
yep. And then our backing back here, isn’t that a beautiful backing? To back this quilt,
this is a big quilt. It’s 90 by 95. You’re going to need about 8 ½ yards if you use
45 inch wide fabric. If you want to just use a big piece of backing, you’re going to
need three yards of a 108 piece of fabric. So that’s how that works on the backing.
And let me show you how to do this.
So what you’re going to do is you’re going to take your strips, and the reason we went
with the black background on this is because it made all the strips pop. You know it just
made them so pretty. And so you’re going to take all your strips and you’re going
to cut them all into four inch segments. So let’s start here with one that I can show
you. I’m going to pick this one. I just think some of these fabrics are just gorgeous.
Alright so what we’re going to do, and if I were cutting this for myself, I would probably
layer three of these strips together. So what I’m going to do here is I’m going to cut
off my little selvedge ends right here. And then I’m going to start cutting this into
four inch pieces. And you will use your whole strip except for one little piece. There’s
very little waste on this. So my strip is folded in half. And everytime I make a cut,
I get two cuts. And so there’s two, four, here’s six and here’s eight right here.
And here’s ten. It takes ten of these four inch pieces to make a block. And so here’s
our ten. And look, this is all you have left this little tiny right here. Well it’s folded
so it’s. Look that’s all you have left. That’s pretty good waste. Now again if you
use your yardage, your black yardage, you’re going to want to cut it into 2 ½ inch strips
because you’re going to need 2 ½ inch squares and 2 ½ inch rectangles which are 2 ½ by
4 ½. So let me get a strip right here. And I’m going to cut some 4 ½ inch rectangles
so I can show you how to do this. So I’ve folded this one in half twice now. And I’m
going to cut my selvedge edges off and that will also cut the fold off right there. And
then I’m going to come along here and I’m going to cut 4 ½ inches of these. Because
you need, let me look here, you need one, two, three, six of these 4 ½ inch pieces
for each block. So we have those there. Then out of your strip, you’re going to also
need 2 ½ inch squares. And you’re going to need two, four, six, eight 2 ½ inch squares
to make your block. Alright.
So once you get all of your pieces cut let me show you how this is assembled. So we’re
going to make two different types of strips for our block. And they’re the same for
the whole block but we’re going to turn them and position them differently. So one
strip set is going to have a 4 ½ on it like this. And then this next four inch block,
we’re going to put a two on both sides, or a 2 ½ on both sides like this. Now for
each block we need two of those with the 2 ½. And three that have the four with the
4 ½ on the end. So let’s take three of these and sew our 4 ½ on the end. I think
this will make a little more sense as I get these together. So we’re going to sew this
one just right on the end right here. And I’m going to chain piece these. And I’m
going to make my stitch a little smaller. And I’m going to sew. Now three of these
will make half our block. And so we’re going to go ahead and make six of these so we can
finish our whole big block. Get a couple more here. And this is chain piecing, when you
don’t cut in between, so that’s what we’re doing right here, we’re chain piecing. Alright
now let me count and see how many I have. One, two, three, four, five, and six. And
so we’re going to put this big piece on there. One more. And again these rectangles
are 2 ½ by four and the background rectangle is 2 ½ by 4 ½. And that’s important. Alright.
So now we have blocks done or these strip sets done and we’re going to take these
over and press them. Actually let’s not press them yet. We’ll press them when we
press all together. And so then we’re going to take our other pieces and we should have
four of these. And we are going to put a 2 ½ inch square on both ends. Now what makes
this work is we’re going to turn those so they’re going to go two different ways and
so let’s go ahead and sew these on this way. So there’s one. Here’s the next one.
And this little 2 ½ inch square is going to go on both sides. One more here. Then what
I’m going to do is I’m going to cut my thread and I’m going to flip these around.
And I’m going to do another 2 ½ inch square on the other side right here. Let me make
sure, hang one. Alright. And here’s my last one right here. Alright now what we want to
do is we want to clip these apart and press them open. And I’ll show you how to layout
this block. This block actually really reminds me of a bargello block but it’s so much
easier. Well actually bargello isn’t hard it’s just a whole different method I guess.
So on these I’m going to press them so my little end pieces go to the outside. And I
have four of those. And they don’t really meet up so it doesn’t really matter which
way you press them. And so we’ll set these over here. Let me move these out of the way
and then we’re just going to press these open. One more here. Alright, now let me show
you how we make these blocks because this is like a little bit of a magic trick right
here. We’re going to scoot this stuff out of the way.
So what we’re going to do is we’re going to take this one first and it’s going this
direction with the color at the top. And then we’re going to lay in one of these. Then
we’re going to take this same block over here that’s half and half and we’re going
to turn it and it’s going to go down to the bottom. Another one of these with the
two on either end goes here. And lastly we have one more of these that’s going to go
up to the top like this. And we’re just going to sew this together. And when we sew
two of these together that’s going to make our full diamond. So I’m going to sew, start
sewing with these strips right here. And I’m just going to, I actually open every one of
them up to make sure they’re going the right direction. This one goes next. And I’m just
going to attach that on here. See how that’s happening right there? It’s going down,
we’re going to come back up because we’re adding our piece that has the piece on either
end like this. We’re going to stitch that on there. And then one more. And again you
have to remember, you know, if you get it on here you know that’s going to be wrong
so turn it around. Make sure it goes like this which to me is a whole different quilt
design. It’s a lot of fun because if you don’t sew these two blocks together, you
know, what could you do with that little scalloped block. Alright now let’s press this. Alright
and here’s our block.
Also I thought this kind of looked, you know, if you made this out of the right fabric,
this could be a Goal Post quilt, you know, this could be the football quilt. But we are
making another side of our block to form our diamond. So what I’m going to do is I’m
going to do the same thing. I’m going to sew these together. I’ve got my two blocks
that have the 2 ½ inch squares on either side and I’ve got my three strips here that
are half and half. And we’re going to start up, turn this one down, turn this one up and
we’re going to sew these together. And I’ll meet your right back here once I get this
block done.
Alrighty, so now I’ve got my last piece one, let’s go press this nice and flat.
Press from the top, make sure you don’t have any folds or creases in between your
seams. And then you can flip it over and you can make your seams go the way that you want
them to on the back. You know if that’s a thing for you. Some people are, you know,
all into the pressing. I’m just looking for a flat block. Alright so then you have
these two blocks and there is a lot of cool things that you can do with these two blocks.
But as I’m laying them out I realize if I put them together like this, they would
form that diamond shape. And so what we’re going to do is we’re just going to lay these
right sides together here and we’re going to match up at these little seams. The only
seams that really matter are your first ones and your last ones because those colors come
right up next to the black and it will show if you’re off. But what we’re going to
do is we’re going to make sure that they nest in there really nice and not have any
trouble with that. Alright so here’s our, we’re coming along. Also you might have
noticed I’m sewing with white thread. Ya I wouldn’t normally do that with a black
quilt. You want to use a thread that matches but this enables you to see it really well.
Alright so let’s press this open. Let’s see how we did. We did pretty good.
Now this was one of those interesting quilts to layout because when we laid it out, originally
I had all these diamonds going, oop let me get that little thread right there. And I
see that I’ve left my rotary cutter open and I will fix that. Alright. So originally
when I was going to do it I had my diamonds going this way. But because they are so much
longer than they are tall it worked out better for the layout to run them sideways. So let’s
take a look at the quilt and see what we’ve got here. We’ve got one, two, three, four,
five, sideways diamonds. And then one, wait, look right here, see what I did to stagger
them, I used a half of a diamond on either end. So there are one, two, three, four diamonds
that you don’t want to sew together because those are going to go on every other row so
that it staggers the look. Now you can lay them out whole but I like the staggered look.
So we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight rows down with five across and
that’s how it works out. It makes a 90 by 95 quilt. So it makes a great quilt. Again
I’m just going to sew them together like this, you know, sew my rows together. But
when I start that next row right here see it has a half block on that row at the beginning.
And a half block over here on the end. And so it just staggers it, off sets it and gives
it that really cool pattern.
So this is a fun one to make. I’m actually really interested to look at different ways
to set these blocks because I think this is a pretty versatile block. It gives you that
kind of bargello look without the bargello work. And we are calling this Diamond Terrace
and we hope you enjoyed this tutorial from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.