Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC. And I’ve got a great project for you today.
Let’s take a look at this quilt behind me. So this is a quilt that uses 2 ½ inch strips.
We’re making a square in a square. We’re snowballing the corners and it gives it this
cute little butterfly in the corners. So we’re calling it the Flutterby Quilt. It’s just
adorable and easy to make. Let me show you how.
So to make this quilt what you’re going to need is one packet of 2 ½ inch strips.
We’re using Melbourne Ocean by Andrea Komninos for Benartex. And it’s just beautiful, beautiful
line. You’re going to need a yard and a quarter of your background fabric and that’s
going to make your inner border and your little flutterbys here. You’re also going to need
about a yard of fabric for your outer border. We put a little six inch border on there.
And that will give you a quilt that is 56 by 67 so a good sized quilt. So let me show
you how to do this.
So to make this quilt what you’re going to do is you’re going to open up your packet
of 2 ½ inch strips. And I like to pair them with a light and a dark. So this is my whole
strip right here. And I’m going to leave it folded in half for ease of cutting. So
we’ve got that folded in half. And what you want to do is you want to go through your,
your packet and you want to get out contrasting colors like this green and this white. You
know they contrast with each other, they’ll be able to see. And you’re just going to
kind of stack them together like that. I’m going to stack two in a row right here because
it makes the cutting easier. From each strip set you’re going to want to six 2 ½ inch
squares. And you’re also going to want to get four 2 ½ by 6 ½ rectangles. Let me make
sure I said that right. Six 2 ½ inch squares and four 2 ½ by 6 ½ inch rectangles out
of each strip. So let’s cut one so that gets into our, into our minds a little more.
I’m just going to cut one of these at a time so you can see. So right now I’m just
trimming off my edges. All my little selvedge edges are gone. And I have these folded double
so we’re getting two with each cut of each color. So I have two, four, six right here.
And then we’re going to do a 2 ½ wide by 6 ½ inch rectangle. I have my half an inch
on this end already so I’m counting six. One, two, three, four, five, six right here
and we’re getting two of those. And I’m going to count this one as well. Line him
up again. One, two, three, four, five, six and a half. Don’t want to forget that half.
Right there and this is the waste that you’re left with. So I love these kind of patterns
where it takes the whole thing.
So let me show you how we’re going to do this. This is actually going to make two blocks.
And to make the whole quilt you’re going to make 63 blocks. But what we’re going
to do is we’re going to take two of our contrasting pieces that are the 2 ½ inch
squares and we are going to sew them to one of the 2 ½ inch that’s the darker. So we’ve
got two lights sewing to a dark. And we are going to go ahead and sew those together,
quarter of an inch. We’re going to sew this square to this one and this one to this one
and that’s going to give us this little strip. So we’ll go here and do that. Just
going to sew that one row and then open it up and sew it to the other side. This is where
it really is important to make sure you have contrasting colors. Alright now let’s press
this. On these kind of blocks I like to press from the top because I want to make sure that
that there’s no folds or pleats. It doesn’t really matter which way my strip goes in the
ironed because it’s not going to match up to anything.
So then what we’re going to do is we’re going to take whatever our outside colors
are and we’re going to sew two of these outside blocks like this to make a square.
So that’s going to be our block right there. So let’s go do that. And I just want to
line these up, make sure they go right on there perfectly. Open it up. Make sure I’m
sewing it to the one with the middle square right here. There we go. And then this is
our block right here. Let me press it out for you. Again I’m going to iron from the
top, make sure my seams are laying nice and flat. And this is our block. So now what we’ve
got, actually you may be able to get four out of that strip instead of two. I might
have been off on my count.
So now what we’re going to do is we’re going to take our 2 ½ inch strip right here.
And we’re going to cut this into 2 ½ inch squares, just like we did the other one. This
comes out of our background piece that’s a, that we needed, that will take care of
our little corner squares and our first border. So you’re just going to go along and cut,
you need two for every square. We’re going to go ahead and finger press these or iron
them or you can draw the line. It gives us a little sew line right there. And we are
going to put this on two corners. Now you do want to make sure that you put it on your
same two corners. And since I have a few blocks made over here I’m going to look at it and
make sure I’m on the right corners. And mine are bottom right and top left. So them
we’re going to go over to the sewing machine and sew those down. We’re going to follow
that line and sew right on there. I’m going to flip my square around and sew the other
side, just like that. And I’m going to trim off these corners. You can use your rotary
cutter or a pair of scissors. We’ve snowballed either side and I’m going to press them
out.
And now that we have this cute little square in a square, I’ve sewn a few together right
here. So you can see how the, the little flutterby comes together in the center. You’re going
to put yours together in rows. You want to make sure that they go the same direction
so see how these blocks right here all, this corner is all the way to the top. That whole
row is going to go that way and your second row is going to go to the same. And then these
are going to meet up and make your little flutterby.
So how great is that? A great little project. Cute little block. A great way to use those
2 ½ inch strips. Here’s how we set ours together. We’ve got seven across, nine rows
down. We put a little 2 ½ inch border on the outside and on the outside of that we’ve
got a six inch border to just set it off. And it comes together beautifully. So we hope
you enjoyed this tutorial on the Flutterby Quilt from the MSQC.