Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC. And I have got a great project for you today.
Today we’re talking about a quilt block called Twin Sisters. And it looks like this.
This is an old block. It was given its name by a ladies group in the early 1900’s. And
it just makes an adorable quilt. We’re calling our version Jack and Jill. So let’s take
a look at this quilt. Isn’t this fun? I mean this is just a really fun quilt. We’ve
seen this set a lot of ways. We like them with the blocks right together. We’ve got
12 across by 14 down, a 2 ½ inch inner border. You’ll need about ¾ of a yard for that.
And you’ll need about a yard and a quarter for the outside. To make the blocks, what
you’re going to need is one packet of 2 ½ inch strips, like this of color. And one
of solids. And we have used Rota Ruth by Elizabeth Hartman for Robert Kaufman. It’s just a
fun, happy line of fabrics and we really like that. So let me show you how to do this.
So you’re going to take one of your solid strips and one of your print strips just like
this. Put them right sides together and we’re going to sew a quarter inch right down the
side. So let’s go to the sewing machine and do that. This is typically a pretty complicated
block and I love when we can make it simple. Or make a version of it so it’s, so it’s
a little simpler than it was. That’s, that’s always my goal to make it, to make it easy
for you guys so you don’t go, OH! You know, but what we do is we look at it and we go,
I could really do that. And I , I just love that part of this. So again, what we’re
doing here is we’re sewing right down the side, quarter of an inch. And
you want to be, you know, you want to be fairly accurate because what we’re making is blocks
and we want them to match up. And so now what we’re going to do is we’re going to press
this open. And we’re just going to lay it on here so that our, our darker fabric is
on the top. We want that seam allowance on the darker side. And I’m just going to press
this back gently. Oh, this fabric has little foxes on them. It’s so cute. And keep your
seam onto the, the fabric, the printed side of the fabric. We’re going to bring that
here over to our cutting mat.
Now once you get your two strips together we’re ready to cut into blocks. And so what
I’m going to do is I’m laying my strip so that it lines up on my mat. So that I’m
sure where it’s going. Then I’m going to clean up this end right here. Make sure
that this is nice and straight. Just like this. And we are going to cut these into 4
½ inch segments. So we’ve got one, two, three, four and a half. And we’ve got one,
two, three, four and the half is at the beginning. And you’re just going to go along and cut
up your whole thing. Like this. Now you can actually layer these and cut several at once.
And I think that I probably have enough that I can show you here. Alright, so now I have
a whole bunch of these cut into little 4 ½ inch segments. And this is what we need to
do it.
So now what we’re going to do is we’re going to come back in and we are going to
cut all these diagonally. So just like this. I’m going to start here right in the middle.
You’ll be able to see that better. And we are going to cut this diagonally corner to
corner. Now on these blocks you want to make sure that they are all cut the same direction.
So only one diagonal, corner to corner. Just like this. And we’re going to do that to
all of them. We’ve got a couple more here. And one last one. Alright. Now we get to put
these blocks together. And so you can see we’ve got, they’re all cut just like this
which gives us a piece that has a larger print side and a piece that has a larger white side.
So what we’re going to do is we’re going to take our, we’re going to take four of
our larger print size like this, and four of our larger white sides . Something together
in a block. So you’re just going to windmill them around like this. And this is going to
make this block. And then this one is going to make this block. Isn’t that cool? So
now you have your two different blocks from the same thing. And we’re going to sew these
together just easy as that. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to take these two
triangles and sew the long side in the middle. And we’ll sew this long side. We’ll sew
this long side. And then we’ll sew the two of them down the center. So let’s go over
here and do the sides.
There we go. And one more side. This is just so much fun. It’s such a fun block to make.
I have several girls that help me sew and I love it when they say This is a really fun
quilt. I would make this one. I mean you know that’s, that’s a good seller. So what
we’re going to do now is we’re going to iron these open. And we’re going to iron
one, one back, one seam going one direction. One seam going the other so they can nest.
Because we want them to lay nice and flat. And when I’m talking about nesting, what
I’m talking about is when you put these two seams together, these pieces right here
are going to lay right in next to each other. And you can feel with your fingers that there’s
no room in between the seam. So now what we’re going to do is we’re going to sew this whole
middle block right down here. And again, we’re just sewing a quarter of an inch right down
the side. Oops, I can’t get ahold of that. There we go. Most important is to make sure
that that middle lines up, nests really nice. And there’s our one block. Now we’re going
to do the same thing with her twin sister. And sew these two together and these two together.
Alrighty, now we have these two blocks. And you might have noticed that I didn’t press
this one at all. This one I press the sides open and I can lay it back and easily press
it open. But sometimes you get in a hurry and you just want to sew them. And so you
know, you might need a little encouragement. You know I’ve got some encouragement right
there to help this whole thing lay down. And you’ve got these two great looking blocks.
This is the twin sister block.
So now I have a bunch of these and what we’re going to do is we’re going to put them together
with where, with the opposites. One after the other after the other. We’re going to
do large print, solid, print, oop do a different print, print, solid like this. And we’re
going to put them together just like that. See how they’re opposite right next to each
other. We’ve got the print and the solid, the print and the solid, print and the solid.
And you’re going to put them up in rows. There’s 12 in each row. Now one thing I
want to point out, when you sew these together in rows, which I’m going to do right here.
You match up your little corner things and sew down. But I don’t want you to be shocked
by this. This is like, this is like big right here. So let me get this out of here and iron
this open because this is important. I, I know I’ll get lots of letters if I don’t
tell you this. So hang on. Alright, so right here when you put these together, these don’t
match up, they off set. And you know, I know lots of people that are going to go, Wait,
it’s not matching, I can’t get my lines to match. These are the two corners you’re
worried about matching so when you put them down you make sure that these two seams line
up and these two seams line up. But they are naturally going to off set. I want you to
look. It’s the same throughout the whole quilt. They naturally off set. It gives them
that little bit of jaggedy look so don’t be concerned about that. Just go ahead and
put them together. You’re going to set them together just rows of 12, 14 rows down. Attach
row by row. Your first border is a 2 ½ inch background border. Your second border is a
5 ½ inch outer border. And it’s just going to make a beautiful quilt. The quilt is 73”
by 83” by the time it’s done. So we hope you enjoyed this tutorial on the Twin Sisters
block that we’re calling Jack and Jill from the MSQC.