I bet you, one of your New Year's resolutions,
is to sew from your stash.
Sounds simple right.
But then we pull out our fabrics and somehow,
they don't play nicely together.
Here is my first StashBuster of the year.
It's fast, easy and fat quarter friendly.
And best of all, I'm going to have some tips
on those hard to mix fabrics.
And did I mention that it comes in three sizes?
So stick with me, and I'll show you how to do it.
(upbeat music)
Hi there, I'm Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts.
I give you tips, tricks and strategies to help you make
the quilt that you want to make.
I'd like to thank Skill Share for sponsoring this video.
If you're like me, one of your New Year's resolutions
is to sew from your stash.
I specifically, would like to use up some of these
fat quarter bundles
that seem to be a major weakness of mine.
They're just like a stack of colourful jewels
that call to me.
And then I bring them home and lay them out
and then I go, now what?
Has this ever happened to you?
Leave a comment down in the notes.
I'm calling this StashBuster,
the Beginner Bargello.
And in this video, we're going to be making
the lap quilt size.
Which is perfect for a fat quarter bundle.
One you bought or one you make up yourself.
So let's get going.
Now bargello is an Italian style of needle point
that quilters have borrowed.
It uses both sharp contrast and gradual contrast
to make some dynamic, beautiful designs.
For this version of the quilt,
you will need 10 to 13 fat quarters.
My family is tall, so I'm going with 13.
Before you start, you want to lay out all your fabrics
and line them up in the flow that you want.
You could chose to lay out your colours,
going in a subtle wave, from cold to warm,
or from light to dark.
Or insert distinct jumps in value, hue or saturation,
to create some really interesting designs.
This is how I will be laying out my colours.
Since all quilts start with a fabric pull,
when I started planning out this video,
I thought I'd talk about problem fabrics first.
But I found the tips made a lot more sense
once you understood how the quilt was put together.
So after I finish the quilt top,
I'm going to talk about those tips.
So before you cut your fat quarters,
give them all a good press.
I've said it before, but, if they've been in storage
for a little while, you'll probably have some sharp creases.
This pattern is perfect for directional fabrics,
that the design is going from selvage to selvage.
Stack as many fat quarters as you are comfortable
cutting at once.
Whether it be one, six or 16.
The choice is yours, don't be shamed into stacking
more than you're comfortable with.
But make sure you're using a sharp blade.
If you can't remember the last time you changed it,
change it now.
So we're going to square up along the bottom, then cut.
Then we're going to measure 18 inches, then cut,
and trim the top.
Trim off the selvages.
And we're going to make three cuts.
Measure up six inches, then cut,
measure up another six inches, and cut.
You now have three pieces, six inches by 22.
Make three piles, stacking the fabrics
in the order that you're going to sew them together.
We're going to call them A, B and C.
Make sure all the directional fabrics
are pointing the right way.
You may want to have a cheat sheet, or take a photograph,
or number all the different blocks,
just to be sure that you keep them all in order.
I always like to start new projects with a new needle.
And I'm also making a sewing ledge.
Make sure you have a stack of scraps
for leaders and enders while you're making this.
I have made a video on both of these items
and if you haven't seen them yet,
I'm going to put a link in the notes.
I stitched the identical pair from each stack
at the same time.
I did this to prevent me from mixing up the order of fabrics
and keeping the directional fabrics pointing
in the right direction and it worked.
I only mixed up once.
So to keep these strips nice and square and
running parallel to each other,
you need to be able to sew straight and iron well.
And I have a video on both of these techniques,
if you haven't watched them yet,
I'll put a link in the notes.
Then I sewed sets of four together, then pressed.
Then I sewed those sets together and then pressed.
Until I had three long identical pieces.
And then I gave the whole strip another good press.
Strip Set A, we're going to use as our reference point.
From Set B, we are going to trim four inches
from the bottom piece and then add it to the top.
To Strip Set C, we're going to take the fabric
from the bottom of the stack and we're going to put it
on the top.
So now we're going to cut smaller strips
from these big strips.
From Strip Set A, we are going to cut three,
six 1/2 inch strips.
With a very small piece at the end.
From Strip Set B, we are going to cut six,
three 1/2 inch strips.
And from Strip Set C, we are going to cut four,
five inch strips.
When you're using a long strip on a smaller cutting mat,
the trick is how you fold it.
So you want to make sure that your sewing lines
are lining up with the lines on your cutting mat.
Each and every seam should be parallel to one line
on your cutting mat.
And then you line up your ruler on the perpendicular lines.
Then your strips will be straight.
So let's make this top, we take a Strip A
and attach a B strip to the left,
and attach a B strip to the right.
And repeat it, so we have three sets.
Now as we combine them together,
the important thing is keeping the horizontal lines
aligned across all three strips.
So I make a template out of cardboard.
I cut it the same width as the block
and I measure 1 3/4 inches up from the bottom.
I make a little notch, then I mark it on both sides
of each piece in Strip A.
And I align the seams in Strip B to this mark as I sew.
Now I find it's easiest to sew a Strip B to the left side
of Strip A first.
And then when I put on the other side,
it's easy to be sure that the two seams
are exactly the same.
And of course, press.
Next, we add a piece, C.
on the left side of the three pieces
and the right side of the last piece.
And then we sew them altogether.
But we still have to keep an eye that all those
C pieces are aligned.
Then we just sew it altogether.
And we give it a good press.
Getting ready for quilting.
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Now let's talk about tricky fabrics.
When I first saw these fabrics,
this is called, London With Love.
They're all stunning, and iconic,
but when I bought a fat quarter bundle,
and I laid them all out, they just became this busy mess
with no centre.
The good news is that there's some strategies to fix this.
So I'm going to talk, and I'm going to use words like
hue, value and saturation.
If you're not sure what I mean, I have a colour series.
And I'm going to link that in the notes below,
So my first tip is to add a solid colour.
This is a place where your eyes can rest.
When our eyes see patterns, they go racing around,
trying to find the centre, or the dominant pattern.
This collection doesn't have a dominant fabric.
So introducing a solid colour will give your eyes
a raft to rest on.
Tip number two, solid colour helps you fill in a colour story.
These fabrics, there is a very dark navy
and you have three very light colours.
And the rest is somewhere in the middle.
I added three colours.
I add kona pimento, which adds an anchor to this red zone
of phone boxes,
palace guards and buses.
For the blue story, the two blues are exactly the same hue,
but they're quite a distance from each other
on the colour wheel.
Because one has white in it,
and one has a lot of black in it.
So the blue I chose here, is actually kona deep blue,
to help bridge the two colours and add a smoother transition.
The coral is just a desaturated version of this red.
If I matched up the coral exactly as it is in the print,
it would just be too bright.
And the fabrics are really very high in value.
So I've actually chosen a slightly more desaturated coral
to go with these fabrics.
Again, to help bridge it.
My third tip is to use a pattern that accentuates
your fabric's strengths.
Every single one of these fabrics is directional.
The crowns, the words, the Union Jacks,
they all have an up and down.
So this quilt and the cutting directions all allowed me
to keep the prints lying in the same way.
There were also some strong horizontal elements.
The buses were going from right to left.
The telephone boxes standing side by side.
And the guards all standing in a line.
So I fussy cut these.
So that each strip was identical in appearance.
It did make the strip narrower.
But I chose a pattern where this wasn't a problem.
So I was able to do an after quilt.
But I'm going to talk about the details of that,
in my next video.
And when I make it, I'm going to put a
link in the notes below.
I know I've been saying it for six months
that I've been making it, really is,
going to be my next video.
So it's cold outside, and too cold to go outside
and spray base my quilt.
So I've taped the quilt back
to a wall in my condo's fire escape.
I used basting spray and smooth as I go.
It's really the same motion as applying wall paper
or a screen protector.
You smooth out the creases and sometimes,
when they're too big, you have to lift it up
and spread it out again.
I repeat, with the quilt top on top of the batting.
And when I bring it down off the wall,
I actually put it out on my counter.
And I just smooth it out one more time.
Without the tension of the tape on it.
Things can pucker and I just take the opportunity
to do it one last spread.
And I flip it over and I do it on the other side too.
And when I designed this quilt, I thought a vertical
straight sewing would be perfect,
just to work with the strips of the quilt.
But I chose fabric
that had these very strong, horizontal elements.
So I decided that wasn't going to work.
Then I decided I would do these nice loopy, wavy lines,
but, I did about two feet of this and then realised,
this wasn't going to work either.
So I decided to just go a different pattern
in each and every fabric and changed my threads
to match the fabric.
It took twice as long, maybe even three times as long.
But part of my goal to improve my skill,
is to take it slower.
Not try to rush through it quite as fast.
And to pay more attention.
It's far from perfect, but I'm okay with that.
I went with the dark navy binding,
which is a desaturated low value blue.
I chose that colour,
'cause I wanted to frame in these light areas.
Because the navy is desaturated,
it doesn't compete with the bright colours of the quilt.
I just love the way that this quilt has turned out.
I really like the fussy cutting and how it gives
the fabric an extra punch.
I like how the soldiers look like they're standing
on a parapet now.
And how from a distance it appears to be
raining on the umbrellas.
So just some final notes here.
This pattern is very easy to alter to your needs.
As I said before, you can add and subtract fat quarters,
depending on how tall or short you want the quilt to be.
I showed you that you can even make your strips narrower,
to accommodate some fussy cutting.
But you can also make the quilt narrower,
by taking a quarter inch or a half inch off some
or all of the strips.
Which I might have done just by cutting one set wrong.
The small and large version of this quilt
is made with, Width of Fabric strips,
instead of fat quarters.
And don't forget to use scrap squares
for leaders and enders.
And this project, this is how many four patches
I was able to make.
If you would like the pattern for this StashBuster quilt,
you can download it on my website
at JustGetItDoneQuilts.com.
And I'll put a link in the notes.
And I think this fabric is still on sale st Sew Sisters.
So if you're interested, I'll out a link to that
in the notes below.
If you want to watch any of the videos I have referenced,
just click on the thumbnail right there,
if you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up.
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So take care, and I'll see you next time.