Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Co.. And I’ve got a fun project
for you today. You know a lot of my things come about because I ask the question, what
happens if. And I’ve been having fun playing with our new drunkard’s path template. And
I thought what happens if I add a half square triangle to the drunkard’s path template.
And so that’s what this quilt is. It’s made of this big block right here. We’ve
got a half square triangle and two drunkard’s paths and let’s take a look at this quilt
because it’s really fun. Isn’t this great? Such a different look. I just try to imagine
what it would look like if I’d done it smaller, tinier, you know, what would happen here.
It’s got a real modern look and a lot of movement to it. And so it’s just fun. So
to make this quilt what you’re going to need is one packet of ten inch squares. And
we have used Grand Illusion by Katya Hoffman for Windham Fabrics. You’re also going to
need the same amount of ten inch background squares because we’re going to put one with
each one of those. Then what we’re going to do is we’re going to have this first
inner border out here. The inner border is going to be ¾ of a yard. Our outer border
is a 6 ½ inch strip. And you’re going to need 1 ¾ yards for that outer border. So
the backing on this quilt is beautiful. We’ve used the marble purple. And if you’re going
to use the 45 you’re going to need 9 ¼ yards of fabric for that. Or you can use one
big piece of the 108 fabric. And you’ll need 3 ¼ yards of the 108. So it’s a lot
of backing but it’s a big quilt. This quilt is 86 by 103 ½. I mean this is a big quilt.
So it’s a lot of fun to make something big every once in a while. Sometimes we just need
something nice and big, fun for our bed. Alright so let me show you how to make this.
We’re going to make two blocks. The first one we’re going to start with is going to
be our half square triangle. And that’s going to be right here. And with the half
square triangle what we’re looking for is a 9 ½ inch size. And so we’re going to
take our two squares. We’re going to draw the line corner to corner. And of course I
used my ruler for this. And I”m going to draw that line. It doesn’t matter what you
use to draw the line because we’re going to cut right through it, it’s going to be
on the inside. Then we’re going to sew a quarter of an inch on either side of that
line. Now I have already done that here on this. And so then what we’re going to do
is we are going to take our, our rotary cutter and just cut right on that line that we drew,
corner to corner. And you can see I’ve stitched this down already. And then we just have to
iron these open like this. And so we’re going to start with our color on the top and
press back. So let me just start here, color on the top and press back. We want that seam
to be, our fabric seam to be on the dark side of the fabric so it hides in there. If we
press that seam toward the light then it’s going to, the seam will show so that’s why
I always say, press to the dark side. Alright there’s our other one. So now you’re going
to make 20 half square triangles and you’re going to make 20 of our drunkard’s path
units. And let me show you how easy this is to do.
So what we’re going to do is we’re going to stack two together. So I have a background
right here, I mean a background and a print. We’re going to lay them right on top of
each other. And we’re just going to cut them in pairs. Now to do this I like to center
the circular part of my template right in that corner. And then I’m just going to
take my rotary cutter and cut right just close to that edge. Just keep it right on that edge
like that. And those come apart. Now this one we know is right. On this other part out
here we want this to be 9 ½ so we have our 9 ½ line right here. And we’re going to
lay it on here. And we’re going to look and see what happens to our fabric. Now you
see it’s very little waste because what we want to do is we’re going to cut off
these two little tiny ends and just this tiny little scoop out in the middle. Do you see
that, I mean, it’s just not even an ⅛ of an inch you’re cutting off. So because
I’m left handed, I”m going to flip it around so I can cut it the right direction.
And I’m going to go ahead and put this on here. And again we have our little measurements.
We want it to be 9 ½ because when you sew two squares together to make half square triangles
take that in a quarter of an inch on either side, it’s going to end up 9 ½. And we
want these to match. So I’m lining this up on the 9 ½ line. And what I’m going
to do here is I’m going to cut off this little edge here. I’m going to cut off this
little edge here. This one isn’t, I didn’t get this facing exactly the right way for
me. But this little curve right here is now in a perfect position for me to cut it. And
so again I’m just going to lay my rotary cutter right along that inner edge and just
come around. And look at the tiny little piece. That’s all it is. But it’s so cool to
me that both of those fit on a ten inch square. Alright.
So now what we want to do is we want to put opposites together so we have our outer piece
here of color and our inner piece here of white. And we’ll do the same thing with
the other one. We’ll have the color in the middle. And we’ll put the white on the outside.
And so we’ll get two blocks out of each cut. And what I like to do on this is I like
to kind of fold these in half and finger press right here. And fold this one in half and
finger press. So I know, I know where they’re supposed to meet up. I also am going to put
a little pin in here. I know, you guys, I’m not much of a pinner but on this big curve
this is super helpful. So I’ve got where my finger press is lined up exactly and then
I’ve got my pin in there. Now I know this looks like it’s not going to work, but what
we’re going to do is we’re going to turn this like this. And we’re going to start.
We’re going to line up these edges and start. Now this concave piece right here, we want
to put that on the bottom. Somehow that just helps. It makes it a little easier. And so
I’m just going to line up these two right here, lay them right on top of each other
and start. And this is one of those things where you just want to go nice and slow. I
was afraid of curves for a really long time but it’s one of those things where it’s
like practice makes perfect. So I go a few stitches and I just pull those edges together
so they just line up so nice. And then I just keep going, keep it at a quarter of an inch.
And then pretty soon you’re right to where the pin is. And you just want to make sure
that you don’t sew over that pin. That’s a no no. I’m going to pull that pin out
right now. Stick it back in here. And then I’m going to just use my fingers and pull
these two seams together on this other side. Because I know that my middle has matched
up. So this should fit just perfectly. Keep going. Alright. So you can see right here,
my ends aren’t exactly together but what I’m going to do is I’m going to iron that
and see if that matters. It shouldn’t matter too much but we’re going to see. Now I like
to lay this part right here, my colored part, and just iron over the circle. Oh my gosh,
it’s perfect. Look how awesome that is. It’s just perfect.
Alright so just, you know, just because we can we’re going to do it one more time so
you can see that this was not a trick of the camera, that we really can do this. And I
really was a little afraid to begin with but I had to slow down. I have to admit, I had
to slow down. And I had to just start sewing a little bit at a time to get my curves to
line up. Take a little bit more, you know, just pay a little bit more attention. Alright
so on these two right here, line them up again right at the edge. I’ve got my concave piece
on the bottom. And concave is, you know, that’s this part. The part where the circle goes
in. I’ve got it under there and I just start with a few stitches and then I line up. This
first little bit is the tightest part. And I watch my quarter of an inch line, make sure
this isn’t rumpling under here. And you will get faster at this. Although you know
speed isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when you’re doing something like this. Alright
now here we are almost to the end and I’m going to try to make these ends match up perfectly.
You know what, this is where a stiletto would come in handy. That’s one of those kind
of little pokey sticks where you can hold something down so that your fingers don’t
go in under there. But I’m feeling pretty good about these ends. Here’s this one and
here’s that one. Pretty good, huh? Alright now let’s go ahead and iron this down. Again
I’m going to put my, my circle to the top. And it’s just beautiful. Look how gorgeous
they are. Those are gorgeous curves if I do say so myself. And we all love some nice curves.
Alright so now let me show you how I put these together. So there are two different blocks
on here. One block has the half square triangle colors to the center with the white drunkard’s
paths coming in. The other block is just the opposite. So it’s got the colorful drunkard’s
paths coming in the middle and the white part of our half square triangles. You’re just
going to sew them together like a big four patch. And let’s look at these right here.
So these are our blocks right here. And so this one has the white, the bigger white part
of the drunkard’s path and those come into the middle with the colors of our half square
triangle. And the next one is just the opposite and so it’s got the colored parts of the
drunkard’s path. But that’s what gives it this cool kind of criss cross pattern on
here. And so when you go to put them together you just want to lay them out like a nice
big, you know, four patch. And so we’re going to put, we’re going to put this together
like this so it’s going to have our, our white in with the half square triangle color.
And here’s this one over here. And then we have to find one of these where the white
is in the middle. Here’s this one. And we’re just going to sew this together. So then you’re
just sewing great big long seams. You know, these are like ten inch seams on here. This
one and this one. And then you sew the center seam and it’s going to make one great big
block like this. And you need both sets, you know, and then you’re going to put them
together. So let’s count our blocks right here. We’ve got one, two, three, four, across
by five down. And that’s what makes it such a nice great big quilt.
And I just think it’s really fun to see what happens if. And our what happens if on
this was what happens if we put a half square triangle with a drunkard’s path block. And
you’ve seen. It’s just awesome. So we hope you enjoyed this tutorial from the Missouri
Star Quilt Co.