2021 Feathered Friends Quilt Along - Month 6 September

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hi i'm amy o'donnell on behalf of bernina world of sewing in raleigh in wilmington north carolina and welcome to month six of our feathered friends quote along this month we're going to be making 18 of these blocks right here and this is called the sawtooth patchwork block and we're going to be making a quantity of 18 and this month we're not going to be sewing them to our center section because next month we're going to make 18 of the feathered friends block and then in the following month we're going to put them all together so this month is going to be a lot of work i'm warning you ahead of time and it may seem tedious at times and so you want to make sure that you break down the work into segments so that you don't feel overwhelmed and you don't stress your shoulders and your arms from all the cutting and trimming and sewing that we're going to be doing each of the blocks contains a quantity of five square and square blocks and a quantity of four half square triangles so we've done the half square triangles and we've done the square and square block already but we're going to do a review of the construction anyway just to make sure that we're all on track this month we're going to be using a lot of our little accoutrements we're going to be definitely using our blade saver thread cutter because this month is very chain piecing friendly we're going to be using our tucker trimmer to trim up those half square triangles that we're going to be making because each block has four half square triangles in it and we're also going to be using our square squared tool for the trimming process after we've made the square and square blocks and we're also going to be using our turing cutting mat if you have one it's going to come in super handy because these blocks all have to be trimmed and like i said it can be tedious and this will help take the stress off if you can just turn it instead of having to move the block every time we're also going to be getting a lot of use out of our portable design board we're going to be using this to lay out our blocks and to tote our pieces around our sewing room and it's a good secure way because the fabric kind of sticks to this batting so that's going to be great too you're going to want to shorten your stitch length again this month to 2.0 since all these blocks or maybe even though less than 2.0 because all these blocks are going to be trimmed we want those stitches to be super secure one thing i want to give you a tip this month we're going to be using all of our fabrics this is my fabric key for the pink version that i'm making we're going to be using all of our fabrics and so we want to make sure that we keep everything labeled and organized so that we don't mix up the squares from the half square triangles and with the square square blocks we don't want to do any of that mixing we do not want to be best friends with our seam ripper we want this to be an uneventful fun sewing month for us don't try to make all of your blocks at once maybe one evening you'll cut all of your half square triangles and maybe sew them and maybe trim them the next evening or the next time you have 15 minutes you can get a lot done if you work on it 15 or 20 minutes at a time it doesn't have to be a sewing marathon it can be just a little bit here and there and personally i always find that it helps to soothe my nerves at the end of a long day if i can just have even a half hour at my machine it's just a good feeling but get some cutting done and label the pieces make sure you label what you've cut so that you can uh keep track of everything um let's see i once took a class from an instructor and she said she was a british instructor and she said okay it's time to clear the decks and she would it was an all-day class and there were several different parts to it and so she wanted us to always clear off our sewing space before we started the next part and i think that's really important with this block to clear the decks so that we can be organized and you know what we're doing let me see what else when we cut the background fabric it's going to be the centers of our square and square blocks and then the other fabrics are going to be the other two and a half inch squares are going to go around the edge of our square and squared blocks and then the three inch squares from the dark and light medium fabrics are going to be used for the half square triangles but we'll go through that when we look at the cutting diagrams coming up so clear the decks fill your bobbin and get ready because we're ready to start month six of this fun project here we go in looking at the cutting diagram for the background fabric the background squares are going to be the centers of our square and squared blocks and on the deb tucker ruler it tells you how big to cut the center square for the two inch finished blocks and it's right here along this edge but to cut 90 of those would make you want to poke your eyes out i mean because they have to be cut one or maybe two at a time and it's it would be very very tedious so instead we're recommending that you cut the background fabric for those centers to be 1 and 15 16 of an inch square and you might say gee 1 and 15 60's my ruler doesn't have that mark on it so what we want you to do is make it a generous 1 7 8 cut so and i've got a picture i'm going to insert right here to show you of this yellow fabric and i've got it kind of lined up where it would be for a one and generous 7 8 cut so that's how i recommend you cut your squares when i made the sample quilt earlier this year i cut mine at regular one and seven eighths and it came out okay but i think a generous one and seven eighths would make my my blocks just a little bit crisper so that's my suggestion to do that so let's go ahead and we're going to start talking about the cutting of the fabrics but i wanted to explain that little glitch about the one in 15 16 and one which is really a one and generous 7 8 okay if you have any questions about this stuff just you know email me or message me on facebook and i'll be happy to help you out so let's look at the cutting diagrams in general out of the dark fabric we're going to be cutting 36 three inch squares and we're also going to be cutting 36 three inch squares out of the light medium fabric and those are going to be for your half square triangles and the rest of the cuts we're going to make out of the colored fabric the two and a quarter inch squares from the medium and the two and a quarter inch squares from the light are going to be used to um for the square and square blocks to surround the one and generous 7 8 background squares so you can kind of see the cutting is no mystery on this one you will need your long cutting ruler and just cut carefully that's all i can say it's a lot of cutting involved so pace yourself and when we cut those pieces that are going to go around the square and square block when we cut those two and a quarter inch squares then we want to go ahead and cut those each once on the diagonal and so here we've got all the pieces cut for our square and square blocks and that's a lot of square and square blocks there's five per block and these are the squares that we have cut for our half square triangles we're going to quickly review the half square triangle process you want to take your marker whether you use a chalk marker or a heat soluble pen or a soap sliver and you want to draw a diagonal line from corner to corner you know you want to pair them up like we've done before you know sandwich them on top of each other lined up and then you want to draw that diagonal line and we'll sew a quarter inch on each side of that diagonal line and then cut like you can see we've cut them on the line press to the dark side and now we're going to use our tucker trimmer to trim them and you can see we've used it and we've trimmed all four sides so that's the half square triangle now we're going to go into making the square and square blocks so we'll take a triangle and we'll put it on each side center it on each side opposite sides of our center piece and you want to pay attention to your color placement because these are not all identical and you want to lay out what you're going to make and have them in separate piles so we've sewed a quarter inch on the line and we have pressed to the dark we're going to place the next two triangles on opposite sides sew a one-quarter inch seam along each edge press the seams open not open but i mean to the dark pre so press it open so you can see your your block in the center and now it's time to trim and so we're using our square and square trimmer to trim and you can see i had cut mine one and seven eighths have i made them and one and generous seven eighths i think my squares would have been a little bigger but i did preserve my quarter inch and that's what's most important and i'm trimming i'm using my square squared trimmer and now i've got my block all trimmed up and this is where your turning cutting mat will come in really handy but you can see had my center square been just a tie bigger it would have made a little bit better of a block but it's fine you know my quilt's hanging up in the store and i don't think it looks all that bad this process of making these square and square blocks is very chain piecing friendly so i'm just showing you how you can lay them out at your machine you can eyeball them to make sure they're centered and then you can start feeding them through the machine and you know make it kind of a factory style thing and so that's what i did with mine but you do want to be very careful with your color placement because you need so many of each color combination so maybe make the 18 center blocks first and then focus on the blocks that go around the periphery but the chain piecing is really the way to go with this makes it a lot easier and remember to shorten that stitch length one thing to remember is when you are sewing together the ones that have two different colored sides you want to put the opposite colors on the sides so you want to sew like i did the dark purple versus the lighter purple put those on opposite sides and then it makes it easier to make sure you're doing it right but you'll get your rhythm you'll get into your rhythm with this but like i said it is very chain piecing friendly and now we've got our blocks on our turing cutting mat and we are trimming two sides and then turning and trimming the other two sides and this is our blocks in process i made all my center blocks first and then i did my other blocks i make it look easy in the video showing piles of finished squares it's a lot of work involved this quilt is a labor of love and it's going to be beautiful when you're done but this is where it gets tedious as our center gets bigger so now i've got my squi my um you know my components for my blocks all made and i'm laying them out on my portable design board this thing is a lifesaver what i always like to do is have one block completely made the way it's supposed to be and then i pattern all my other ones after it you know how when you have surgery and you go in they say what's the procedure do like the time out today we're going to operate on the left thumb you know you want to do that with these blocks and make sure that they are the way facing the way that they're supposed to be with the colors because it can get crazy um you know when you look at this for a long time so i've sewing my rows together and i've chosen to press my seams open and the strip stick is like super handy for this to press these seams without disturbing those other seams of your half square triangles or your square square blocks you can press these seams open with ease and i've got you know laying them out methodically to make sure to minimize my time with my friend the seam ripper love that guy but not every day here i am using my strip stick to press my seams open and when you finished if you've sewn your accurate quarter inch which we've talked about during this process the quarter inch seam is and good trimming is is very important you're going to come up with a six and a half inch block and it's going to be beautiful and there i have it there laying underneath my tucker trimmer and there is my finished block right there and so um we need to make 18 of these so as my mother-in-law would say gird your loins and you know do it a little bit at a time clear the decks and enjoy the process because it's going to be beautiful when it's done and here are my 18 finished blocks so we're going to make the half square triangles the square and square blocks we're going to sew an accurate quarter inch seam and we're going to trim accurately and this is what you're going to come out with it doesn't have to be perfect but it's going to be beautiful and it's going to be because you made it thanks a lot everybody next month we're going to be doing the feathered friends block and it's going to be awesome we're into the home stretch now have a great month everybody bye-bye you

Channel: BERNINA World of Sewing

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Id: CN5xs-E0ct4

Length: 16min 24sec (984 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 03 2021