Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. And I’ve got a really
fun, sort of sentimental project for you today. I have a quilt that hangs in my studio that
was made in 1894 and it’s a crazy quilt. And it is one of my very most favorite quilts
because I love looking at all those stitches and all the work that goes into it. So we
tried to replicate that using Creative Grids Crazier Eight template. And I’ll show you
how to do that but let’s take a look at this quilt behind me. Isn’t this fun? So
what I did was I put, this is the block you’re making right here. But I put four of them
together and then I used all of my fancy stitches on my sewing machine to create the look of
an old quilt. Of course you don’t have to do that. There’s a zillion ways and things
to do with this block. But that’s what I did because I so love that quilt that hangs
in my studio. So to make this quilt what you’re going to need is one packet of ten inch squares.
And we have used these Kona Cotton Paint Box by Elizabeth Hartman for Robert Kaufman. And
this is a really vibrant line. This top, this top fabric doesn’t do justice to really
how vibrant this line is. You’re going to need a little sashing for ours and that’s
for this border and the sashing strips that are in between. You’re going to need a yard
and we used black. Our binding is a half yard of the same black. Your backing on here is
just a solid that we used and you’re going to need 3 ½ yards of whatever you choose
to put on the back. So it’s pretty fun to make this and it’s pretty interesting when
somebody comes up with a template that makes things easy.
So why I was intrigued by this was because the template fits on a layer cake which you
know I’m all about the layer cakes. And so I’m going to pull out some pieces here.
And I believe, let’s see, on this template there are one, two, three, four, five, pieces.
So I’m going to pull our five different squares of fabric that will kind of look good
together and kind of be mixed up. And you know we’ll just get some different pieces
in here. Let’s see here, I’ll get a darker green and a yellowy. Now obviously you can
put anything you want in here. I’ve kind of destroyed that poor layer cake. But I like
to do it with five different pieces and I’m going to stack them. So I’m going to make,
nope that’s just one. So I’m going to stack them on top of each other and make sure
they’re lined up pretty good. Now these templates make, at the end of the day, they’re
going to make an eight inch block so you have a little bit of wiggle room. But when we start,
here’s how we’re going to lay them out. And the reason I’m doing five is because
you want to mix them all up. This will make a whole block.
And so we’re going to put these together. And let me look to make sure I’ve got these
on here right. It’s good to have the directions to follow. So here’s your A over here, oop
this way, A. And you can see we’ve got these little corners going in the corners.And here’s
C in this corner and here’s our B block right here. So this is how this is going to
look. Now it would be very handy to have a rotating cutting mat so I”m going to go
get mine. Alright so I’ve got my rotating mat here. I’m all set up. And to make things
easier, what I’m going to do is I’m going to actually take my ruler and I”m going
to cut these two pieces apart. So I”m just going to cut right down here just like this
like right between these two. And just move them apart. And I’ve cut quite a few of
these so you know I’ve like figured out the easiest way for me to do it. Alright so
now what I’m going to do is I’m going to line this piece up right here and I’m
going to make my one cut here, trim off my little end right here, trim up this edge over
here. And then I’m going to stack all these pieces right up here and keep them in the
same order. So here’s my D piece right here and I think I can move this piece. So one
these pieces you’ll see some of them you can move it right into the cut and then you
only have to cut three sides. Alright. So we’re going to cut over here. And I’m
going to trim up this side right here and trim over here. Now if your blade isn’t
very sharp, five is going to be hard for you to get to. So if you don’t want to cut five
what you want to do is you just want to cut a couple at a time and then what you’re
going to do is just make stacks of these. So they’ll go all in the same order but
you’re just going to make stacks of them because they sew together just like they’re
put together. Alright so now I’m cutting this little one right here. This is going
to go up here in the corner. Now this one is going to come here. And let me cut this,
move this one out of the way, cut off this little edge right here. This mat, this rotating
mat is so handy for this kind of stuff. Now I’m cutting five because I want to show
you the whole block. But you can, but you can really cut however many you want. Don’t
feel like you’re stuck into doing what I’m doing. Just make sure you’re comfortable
doing what you’re doing and.
Alright, so here’s our last piece. And let me go ahead and rebuild these for you on this
mat where you can see them. So we’ve got all our pieces in here like this. Alright.
Alright so now what we want to do is we want to start sewing together. And obviously we
don’t want to start with the same pieces. So I”m just going to rotate one of these
pieces. And I’m going to take these two top pieces right here. And you see from now
on there set to go together in another color. And when I did this what I did was I chain
piece all the bottoms and then all the tops. So I’m just going to grab these two stacks
and we’ll sew them right together just as they come off the stack because I’ve mixed
them up. So anyway I’m going to sew these together later because I want to show you
these blocks and I’ve got three going here. And so we’re going to start with these two
up here. And again I’m just going to, this one I’m just going to pull from the bottom
and put over here with my top piece. And because you’re sewing several different pieces of
the top and of the bottom, all your squares are going to be scrappy. Let me just sew a
couple of these. And this is fun to chain piece because you really do finish them really
quick. One more here. Oop not that guy. And then we’ll put those over there. Oop I put
my top over here. Sorry guys. Alright here we go. You can see I’m not being too picky
about my color matching or I’m not too worried about it at all. Now on these last three they
get one more piece. So I”m going to clip those off, clip these apart. And then I’m
going to open these up and sew my one more little side piece to them. And I”m just
going to make sure it’s different from the other two colors. Let me find, this purple
will go nice. I also love how well these things line up with each other. They line up very
nicely. Alright now as soon as I’m finished with this seam I’m going to press all of
these open because we’re ready to put the two halves of our blocks together. But we
want them to lay real nice. So we’ll clip these open. And I’m going to press these
right here. And I’m just going to make two piles. So I”m going to have the bottom half
pile right here. Where’s my third? Here we go. And then this is my top half right
here. And I”m just going to press so the seams all go the same direction. Alright.
So now when you look at these you can see we just want to make sure we have different
fabrics. And so I’m going to take this guy right here and put him with this yellow. See
how that’s going to go together. We’re going to sew that center seam. And we want
to make sure that all of these are different colors so this is perfect because there’s
no other colors in here. We’ll sew that seam across there. Now this one, it has the
same green and so I would actually leave that one and wait until I had another side to put
with it so that it matched a little bit differently so that it wasn’t the same color. I’m
kind of particular about the colors. I didn’t want them to line up right with each other.
So we’ll finish up these two so you can see how it worked. And one more here. Alrighty,
so then we’ve got this cute little crazy block right here. Let me press it open. And
then I’m going to press this one open. And you can see our little crazy block right here.
Here’s two of them.
And so there’s so many things that these can do. The way we set ours, this is the first
one I made and so the way I set it was how my brain thought it. And I right away saw
these little diamond pieces right here and put those together as a star. So what I did,
I have a couple of blocks right here. And I just put them together like this as a star.
And you can maybe see what I mean because of the star, these things right here form
a little star. So here’s that one and this one. So my quilt goes together four blocks
like this that you make like a big four patch. So you have a block like this and you see
that star in the center. So let’s take a look at the quilt. Can you see the star? This
is what I’m talking about right here. So there’s a little star where it comes together
in the center. Obviously you don’t have to set them like that. Don’t be afraid to
play with this and try some different things. And don’t be really afraid to try all your
different stitches.
Now when you plug in your stitch thing, you plug in those numbers and a stitch comes up,
don’t be afraid to grab a scrap of fabric and lengthen it or widen it or see what it
looks like, you know if you change it up a little bit. You have all those options on
your sewing machine. If you’re going to have a machine with stitches, you’re going
to have options to change up that stitch. And a lot of these, like I wanted them a little
wider to really cover that whole seam. Or I wanted, maybe the design was really tiny
and I wanted to see it big. So don’t be afraid if you decide to do the stitches on
your quilt because obviously this is going to make a really great, fun quilt just like
this without the stitches. But if you decide to do the stitches then don’t be afraid
to play with those and just mix them up and have fun with this because this is kind of
a lost art. You know it used to be in the old days when the women stitched on a quilt
it meant they had a little more extra time, you know, because they made quilts to keep
people warm. But if they put fancy stitches on there they were a little better off than
somebody else because they had time on their hands to make things pretty. So I just love
the idea of the crazy quilts. I love this block. I love how simple it makes it. And
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.