Hi, I’m Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company and I’m here to show you another
variation on the Disappearing Pinwheel. This is such a fun block. You’ve heard about
the Disappearing Nine Patch, you’ve heard about the Disappearing Four Patch, and now
we have the Disappearing Pinwheel and this is such a versatile block, so many ways to
set it. So, this little quilt behind me is 55” by 65” and I made it using one layer
cake. This layer cake right here: Muslin Mates. Now, it looks like a white layer cake, but
when you dig into it, it’s got all these blacks and tans and really interesting colors.
So, I was really anxious to see how it would work up with this pattern.
So, what I did was I went ahead and separated out my layer cake because when you’re dealing
with things that you know you want to have some contrast on, and there’s not going
to be a ton of contrast, like on this one where it’s beige and white, you want to
make sure that you have all your whites used up with your beiges and your blacks with your
whiter, lighter colors so that they all stand out. So they all have some. So I went ahead
and pulled mine out and matched them up from the layer cake. So then what you’re going
to do is, you’re going to take two squares and you’re going to sew them together a
quarter of an inch all the way around the outside. This is just how we’re doing the
pinwheel. We’ve got to make our pinwheel before it disappears, we’ve got to actually
make it. So we’ve sewn this one a quarter of an inch all the way around and now we’re
going to cut it diagonally both directions so we can make a pinwheel. And we just line
up our ruler from corner to corner on the, point to point on the corners. Give it a cut.
Make sure it stays together. Then we’re going to come over here and line this one
up corner to corner and give it a cut. This will give us four, half-square triangles.
The half-square triangles, then we’re going to go ahead and press open. And I like to
just lay them on my ironing board with the dark up because I want to press them to the
dark side. We’re going to the dark side.
So here we go. We’re just going to press those and roll them back. Oh, and you can
see that the fabric that I used is the same fabric that’s on my ironing mat. There is
a cool tutorial on how to make this, this little ironing pad if you ever want to make
that online too. So you can check that out as well. Then you could put any fabric on
there that you’d like.
Alright, so now we need to put together our pinwheel and we’re going to put these together
so that, so that every other square, every other half square has color and not, like
this. So it makes the pinwheel. There, one more time, there we go. Then what we’re
going to do is we’re going to sew this together, right here and right here. And when we get
these two pieces sewn together then we’ll sew our two rows together like this. And then
we’ll have our finished pinwheel. So right here is our finished pinwheel.
Now what we’re trying to do with this block, this disappearing pinwheel block, is we’re
trying to divide this block into three equal segments. So you’re going to take the overall
measurement of your block, and mine ends up being 12 ½, and I’m going to divide that
into three so... because I want all my pieces to be identical. So then I’m going to come
out from the middle and I’m going to make the same exact cuts on all four sides and
mine works out to 2 ⅛. And I’m going to go ahead and cut it on all four sides, like
this. You don’t want to move your pinwheel, so you can use a small, a smaller mat that
you can turn, or you can use a rotating mat. I’m just using a small mat here that I can
turn. And, again, I’m coming out, I’m coming out for my measurement. It’s 2 ⅛
from the middle. That will give me three pieces that are the same size. Actually, actually
nine pieces. What we’re working on, we’re making nine squares so that we can sew them
all back together -- nine squares that are the same size. We want, we want to be able
to swap them around. Alright, so now we have this awesome pinwheel right here that’s
cut on all four sides.
So now what we’re going to do is, we’re going to take these ones with the two stripes,
and we’re going to put them so they face the pinwheel. Alright, so we’re going to
turn all of these to the center and then all our little side pieces we’re also going
to point to the center, just like this. And look what you get! You get a churn dash block
or a monkey wrench block with a pinwheel in the center. You didn’t have to cut any of
the pieces. Isn’t that awesome? I mean, it just looks so cool. Now the other thing
you do is you can flip this completely around and you can make it where the white makes
the pinwheel color. There are so many things you can do with this block. It’s really,
really fun. So, here is the other way. Isn’t that amazing? So cool!
So then when we go to sew this together, we’re just going to sew rows of three and then sew
our rows together. So, I want to make this a black pinwheel, so I’m going to go ahead
and turn this right back around, put my darks toward the centers, just like this. Just like
that, all from a pinwheel block. I just think this is so cool. And then we’re going to
take these and I’m just going to take this row and go over to the sewing machine and
sew them together. I’m going to make sure that my, my dark piece is pointing toward
the bottom of my triangle so that it, it stays close to the center. And that row is ready
to go. And then I’m just going to sew the rest of these together and I’ll meet you
right back here.
So now we have all three of these rows sewn together and we need to press them. These
outer ones, I’m going to press in and this inner one, this middle one right here, I’m
going to press out and that will help the rows lay together really nicely when we put
our block together. So, I’m just going to go ahead and roll these back and press these
out, like this. Make sure that they’re out of both sides, flip them over, make sure your
seams lay nice and flat, and then this will nest really nicely together. Alright, so now
we just have to put our block together. We’re going to lay these right on top of each other.
We’re going to make sure that these nest up here really nice here and they are feeling
like they are going together just perfectly.
So, I’m going to sew this together, again, a quarter of an inch seam -- that’s what
we use in quilting. I’m going to make sure that my seam is lined up. I can feel, I can
feel it with my finger that it is nested in there really nice. And then I’m just going
to add that bottom row on over here, so let me grab that, and I’m going to make sure
these seams are going opposite directions, nested in, like that, and just start sewing.
I kind of like to do a little anchoring stitch and then I just let it sew and make sure it’s
all lined up.
Alright, so now let’s see what we got. Hey, we did good! Let’s iron it out. Nice and
pressed, shot of steam, and we have our finished block. So, when you get your block finished,
this is what you get. Isn’t that darling? And just from a pinwheel that you’ve cut
on all four sides. So to lay out this quilt, I just lay mine and sewed them together light,
dark, light, dark in rows, like this. You can see on the quilt behind me, I have four
across and five down. I also added about a five inch border on here to go all the way
around, and it ends up finishing about 55’ by 65” just from this one layer cake. So,
we hope you enjoyed this tutorial on the Churn Dash Pinwheel block, another variation of
the Disappearing Pinwheel from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.