Hi, it’s Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company and I have a great project for you
today. Take a look at this quilt behind me. I know this looks tricky, but this is so simple.
You are going to love this. This is EASY.
So, you guys know I love blue and white, anyway, and I have a big dish collection of blue and
white. And this reminds me of that. I just, it’s just so much fun to me.
So, to make this quilt you are going to need 4 packets of 5 inch squares, 42 squares in
each, and you are going to need 4 of these. And we used the Bluebell by Nancy Gere for
Windham. Just a gorgeous line of fabric. You are also going to need 4 packets of precuts,
5 inch squares that are a solid. This is going to be your background fabric that you are
going to set your blue football shape onto. We also have this football shaped template
and, I mean, it just works perfect for this job and it’s called Circle Magic Plus, and
you are going to need some fusible interfacing. This is because I’m going to show you a
super easy way to do applique and it uses this fusible. You are going to look for something
really lightweight that has fusible on one side only. So, and you’ll need probably
8 yards of that.
So, let me show you how to make this block. Okay, so let’s get started. The first thing
we are going to do is, we’re going to take our blue fabric and you can actually stack
these and cut, you know, two or three of them at a time. We are going to lay our template,
our Circle Magic Plus Template, diagonally right across it and we’re going to go ahead
and cut that out and you just want to go slow and keep your rotary blade right along the
edge of the template. It’s a little different when you’re cutting curves, but your normal
rotary cutter should work with this. And you just go all the way around and your piece
should look like this when you’re finished. It will look like this little template, little
football.
Now we are going to do the same thing with our interfacing. So, we’ll get our interfacing
out and interfacing is very thin, so you can actually cut several of these at a time with
the interfacing, and we’re just going to do the same thing. We’re going to cut right
around it, like this, and then we’re going to pull this around and cut up this side.
There we go.
And this is a super cool way for doing any kind of applique that you want to do. This
makes it quick and easy with no mess and it gives you the look of needle turn.
So, now you have your fabric and your interfacing all cut out and what we are going to do is,
we’re going to lay our fabric down. We’re going to take our interfacing and we’re
going to feel for the bumpy side. The bumpy side is going next to the fabric. I know that
sounds a little crazy, but trust me on this. It works.
We’re going to line it up on there and we’re going to take this to the sewing machine and
we’re going to sew ¼ of an inch all the way around the outside edge, completely enclosing
it. So, let’s go over here and do that. I’ll move my chair here a little bit. There
we are. Make sure it stays lined up. Mine got a little wonky in my travels to come over
here. There we go. And I lay my presser foot along the edge and I just sew straight off
the end. And then, bring it back and come straight up the other side. So, put your little
presser foot right along the edge of it. Just like that.
And then we have this piece, right here; it’s completely sewed. And what we are going to
do, I’m just going to trim this end, right here, and I’m just trimming it, not cutting
through the stitches at all, but trimming it so it’s a little closer because I’m
going to turn it. So, to do that, I lift these fabrics so they are away from each other and
I’m going to cut a “V” in the interfacing and I’m just going to cut a big slit, right
here, to make it a little easier and then we are going to turn it right sides out. So,
I reach in here for the corner and I push that corner out on both ends and then I run
my finger along the seam so it stays nice and curvy and I close my scissors or use your
purple thing or something like that for these points. You want to try and get the points
pretty nice and pointy.
And then you have this piece, right here, but what you will notice by turning it around,
now the fusible is on this side. So that’s when you take your piece of background fabric,
your 5 inch square, and you are going to line up your little football shape on there and
we are going to press that down. Alright, so now we are just ironing this down on here
and it’s to hold it in place. That’s going to hold it in place. You want to make sure
your points are a ¼ of an inch away from the edges so you can take your seam in there
because we are going to sew these together.
Alright, so there’s our finished little peel and we need to go stitch around it; I
like to use a blanket stitch. So I’m going to go over here to my machine and I’m going
to find my blanket stitch and I am going to go ahead and stitch that and just stitch right
along the edge. If you make your blanket stitch fairly narrow, you really can hardly see the
stitches and then it looks really like it’s been hand appliqued on there, but this is
a great way to put applique on because all you do is, you machine sew around it and flip
it. It gives you nice, clean edges. Looks like you did all that hard needle turn work.
All the work without -- or -- all the look without the work.
Alright, now here is our little finished block, right here. How cute is that? I mean that
is darling. Then you are going to put these together in a four patch. So, I have some
other ones done here and we are going to put these together so that all the points point
to the middle and this is our four patch, right here. So, we are going to go ahead and
put this together and stitch ¼ inch seam right down the side, just like this, and it
gets pretty close to that peel on the bottom, but that’s alright. And then we’ll press
this back, right here, and I’m going to press this one as well, and then you just
put these together with all your points pointing to the middle just like you would a four patch.
So, you have this little seam here in the middle and you just want to turn those right
sides together and nest that seam up and sew that together. Isn’t this fun?
Alright, now you’ve got your square, your block sewn together, just like that, and you
are going to be able to just sew rows together and you really just sew them right to each
other. See how that works? Just like that? And then you just add your next row on. There
is no sashing, no nothing. You want them to meet and it makes kind of these circular patterns
that circle in and out and around. I mean, it just looks gorgeous.
So, once you get your four patches together, you are going to put 6 across the top and
7 down and it’s going to make a quilt that is about 65 x 74. As much as I love blue and
white, I wanted to see what it was going to look like in a different fabric, so I put
together this little table runner, right here, and, I mean, I think it’s just darling no
matter what fabric you use. This is a really fun quilt. They are commonly called Pumpkin
Seed Quilts or Orange Peel Quilts or Football Quilts. Whatever you call them, we hope you
enjoyed this tutorial from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.