Accuquilt Classroom - March 2018

[Music] hi everybody I'm Stewart Hillard from okie quilt and today I'm going to be leading you through our first quilting classroom now our quilting classrooms are going to show you how to get the most out of your aqua quilts whether you've got the cube the companions the strip dies or the appliques I'm going to show you new and exciting ways to use your dies and there are always going to be inspirational patterns and ideas to give you even more value from your system in today's show I'm going to be showing you how to use the cube and the companions to create a really beautiful sampler quilt now you could use this sampler quilt as a wall hanging or a table topper it would also make a really lovely baby quilt and just to mix things up a little bit I've made it octagonal now I don't want you to be put off by the shape and think that this is an advanced project this is an easy project easy enough for a beginner so let's get started and let's look at all the basics that you need to know to use your go system right from the very beginning so here in front of me I've got my what I like to think of as my bread and butter of the system this is my cube and my companion's the cube consists of eight basic shapes and these are those squares triangles rectangles and parallelograms that we use for the majority of our geometric piecing on our website would give you 72 quilt blocks to make using them but it's the tip of the iceberg there's so much you can do so we're going to be using the 12 inch cube today which is what I have here but it doesn't matter if you've got the 6 the 8 or the 9 inch cubes you can still make my sampler quilt it's just going to be a different size now right next to that I've got the companion classics now the companion classics consists of four more we have the chisel the signature dye and the two halves of a drunkards path this adds even more quilting possibilities and even more piecing possibilities last of all we've got the brand new companion angles this is one of my favorite die sets and this combines brilliantly with your cube so let's have a look at the system in a little bit more detail one of the things I absolutely love about the a cube system is that you've got built-in storage I don't think any of us have as much storage as we would like or need but our dies can at least be kept tidy and easily accessible even if your fabric like mine is squished into every cupboard and draw that you have in your whole house so let's get out the dies we've got eight different shapes and they are numbered and because it's a numbered system it's very very easy to use the dies are numbered 1 through 8 and in my 12 inch cube 5 of the dies are 10 by 10 dies and then three of them are 6 by 6 and we have a cutting mat for each so it doesn't matter whether you're using the 6 inch the 8 inch the 9 inch or the 12 inch you will have those same eight shapes and you'll also have your cutting mat and your DVD on getting started but I'm going to talk you through how we do our first cuts and then we'll get started on that project ok so to start with I've got out dye number 8 which is the rectangle now you may not be able to see this but there is actually a blade running down the center here and there's the blade running all the way around the outside so this particular die will cut two rectangles in one pass now with your Aqua court system you can cut up to six layers of court weight cotton you can cut any kind of fabric but if your fabric is thicker than quilt weight fabric then you might want to start with just one or two layers and build up from there your dies are made of two tone phone so we have a darker and a lighter foam and that's so that you know exactly where to place your fabric that minimizes wastage and it means that we can get the very most out of every scrap of fabric now do you notice that the rectangle is on a bit of an angle can you see rather than being straight on the die the top blade is on a bit of an angle that's done very deliberately the reason why that's done at an angle is so that when it goes through the machine we don't have one solid blade hitting the rollers as it goes through it staggers the cut and it means that the cut is easier and cleaner and more precise you want to line up your fabric with the shape that you're cutting rather than the die so your fabric is going to look like it's on a little bit skew with but that's not a problem so let me show you how we lay our fabric on our dies to get started the first thing is that we need to cut our fabric on the lengthwise grain wherever possible this is going to give us the cleanest crispest most accurate cut now for those of you who don't know fabric has grain lines when fabric is woven it has a lengthwise grain a crosswise grain and it also has what's known as the bias now I'm going to show you on this piece of fabric how we can determine where those grain lines are now on this first piece of fabric the selvedge is still intact the selvage is that piece of fabric along the side which shows the name of the fabric line and the manufacturer and maybe the color dots as well that's called the selvage the lengthwise grain look runs parallel with that selvage so when you put your fabric on your die if you have the selvage intact if you make sure that the selvage runs north to south and it goes through the length of the machine then you'll be cutting on the lengthwise grain so this would be the direction that we would put the dye through our cutting machine rather than having it running east to west as I've got now we want it north to south now if your fabric doesn't have the selvage on let's say for example is a scrap it's been in a draw for a while the first thing to do is to give it a good press before you try cutting it wrinkled fabric never cuts well but then you need to determine where that lengthwise grain is and that's very easy to do we need to do the snap test so what you're going to do is you're going to hold your fabric and you're going to give it a sharp tug and I want you to listen carefully now turn the fabric in the opposite direction and give it another sharp tug do you hear that that sound is much lower and duller listen again it's quite a dull sound listen to it now it's higher that's the lengthwise grain the threads are tighter and it's going to give us a more accurate cut so this would be the direction to put through this is north to south so once we found that grain line we can cut our fabric now for the majority of our cuts we can fan fold our fabric and what fan folding means is that we're going to lay our fabric on top of our die and we want to make sure that we up that straight of grain with the straight edge of the shape that we're cutting we can overlap by about a quarter of an inch and then we're going to lay our fabric back and forth just like we're making a paper fan this is called fan folding so one way up one way down and back and forth until we've got up to six layers once we've got our shape covered with then going to put the cutting mat on top and we're ready to cut our fabric so here I've got my go big which is the electric version of the Aqua quilt cutter it's our largest machine it has a 14 inch wide mouth which means that we can cut every single die in the Aqua core collection and when you're not using it it folds away for really easy neat storage there's no hand cranking required so if you have any kind of manual dexterity problems and you find turning that handle difficult the go electric is a fantastic way to go got our own off button here now I've got my fabric all prepared I fan folded it and made sure it's lined up with the top blade of the shapes that I'm cutting and then I'm going to lay my cutting mat on top and then I'm just going to put it through my cutter and let my go electric cut the shapes out as soon as it comes out the other side your machine's going to switch itself off and then I'm left with my shapes all cut out and I'm ready to start my piecing now I've cut out some rectangles here and the reason why I've cut the rectangles out first of all is because patchwork and quilting relies on accurate cutting we're always going to get that with our go cutter but it also relies on accurate sewing so before project I always like to test and check my quarter-inch scene to make sure I'm sewing accurately so this is one of my top tips for successful patchwork so start by cutting some rectangles now you're going to need three of them and it doesn't matter what they're cut out of just some quilt weight cotton and what I'm going to do is I'm going to lay them out like this so I've got two rectangles here at the bottom and one at the top and I'm going to start by sewing these two rectangles together using a quarter inch seam now you can use a quarter inch foot on your machine or you might be able to set your machine to sew a quarter inch seam allowance on my machine here stitch number forty three gives me a quarter inch seam allowance so I'm gonna start sewing and I'm going to sew that same [Music] okay so once I've shown that scene I'm going to press those two rectangles open now I like to finger press and just crease them back but you can do this with an iron if you prefer so I've got my two rectangles sewn together now my last step is to sew my top rectangle to the top okay just like this so I've got a seam going here and it seemed going here now if I've used an accurate quarter inch seam allowance my last rectangle should fit perfectly on the top and it does hurrah if yours doesn't if your top rectangle is too big that means that your seam allowance is more than a quarter of an inch and you need to adjust your machine or the size of your quarter inch seam and make it a little smaller if your top rectangle is too small then you've done two bigger seam allowance and there we go it fits perfectly on the top so once you've done that and you've checked your quarter inch seam allowance you're ready to go so the first block that we're going to make for my mini aqua cool sampler is called the Dutchman's puzzle and that's the block that you can see right now it's made up of four large units of what we call flying geese or double flying geese we've got eight individual flying geese units to sew together now you're going to need some different fabrics for this I've used a selection of blue fabrics and some cream fabrics but as long as you've got good contrast between light and dark it's going to work beautifully now from your cube you're going to need two dyes you're going to need dye number four which is your quarter-square triangle i these are what i like to think of as your flying geese tie and this is one of my favorite dyes from the cube I use this all the time so that's dye number four you're also going to need dye number five and that's your small half square triangle dye so we need both of those and then you're also going to need your cutting mats if you've got the 12 inch cube like I have that means you'll need your ten by ten and your six by six cutting mat both of those come included with your cube if you're using the six eight or nine inch cube you just need your six by six cutting mat so we're going to start by cutting those large quarter square triangles and that's using dye number four so I'm gonna grab some fabric and don't forget each time you cut you need to make sure that you're cutting on the lengthwise grain so here I've got the selvage still on my fabric and that's going to run north to south now for each of my blocks I'm going to need eight flying geese four in one blue and four in another blue so I'm gonna grab a different fabric and I'm gonna put two layers of fabric so I've got one of my dark blue and one of my light blue now one of the benefits I find from using the go big is because you've got that extra wide mouth on your machine your extra fabric can stay attached you don't need to start trimming down your fabric so long as it's not going to get caught on anything you can allow that to run through your machine so we're gonna cut our flying geese first of all and just let that run through the machine and I find by not trimming my fabrics down I can get a lot more pieces of fabric out of every half yard so there are my flying geese all cut and every single one of them is perfect and I've got a lovely stack of flying geese so that's those cutouts so you'll need eight of those you're also going to need to cut out some half square triangles using your dye number five now for this you're going to need to use your background fabric now you could use one background fabric as I'm going to or you could really mix this up and use lots of different scraps so for your half square triangles you're going to need a total of sixteen now your dye is going to cut to half square triangles and we can cut up to six layers so that means we can cut 12 in one go so you're going to need to make a couple of cuts of your half square triangles I'm just going to cut a couple to get me started you need a total of 16 and there we go that's some half square triangles all cut out and ready to go and I want you to notice also that on your triangle dies the dog ears are automatically cut off which makes piecing pressing and the final quilting so much easier because your quilts gonna lie flatter you're gonna have less bulk in your seams there's no going in there with a pair of scissors and trimming it just makes the whole process so much easier so let's get to piecing this first block okay so I'm going to set out some of my flying geese to get started these are my large flying geese and I've got four of the dark blue and four of the medium blue and I need to sew one of my light half square triangles to each side to make a rectangle and when I sew two of those units together that's going to make a square a finished square and I'll end up making four of these whole units that I will sew together to make my Dutchman's puzzle block now it's really worth practicing making your flying geese blocks because you're going to use these for so many traditional and modern quilt blocks they're one of the basic building blocks of quilting so let's get it right right from the word go so we've already checked that we're sewing a really nice accurate quarter inch seam allowance now we can sew our triangles the first thing to be aware of is that those edges are on the bias so they can be stretchy we don't want them to stretch so we need to handle our triangles carefully we don't want those shapes to distort we're going to lay the first triangle the light triangle on top of the blue triangle and because the dog ears are clipped off everything lines up beautifully and make sure you've matched those raw edges perfectly like that now when I started quilting many many years ago I thought that pinning was for other people and I was a bit too cool to pin but I realized that you only end up having to take the time back another way you unpack and redo because things slip so pinning is a really smart move so I like to pin my patchwork and now we're going to sew a quarter inch seam allowance down this side now one of the pitfalls when you're sewing especially small shapes like triangles in a sewing machine is that those first few stitches there's so little fabric under the feed dogs that your machine has got nothing to grip on to and what lots of us find one was sewing small pieces of patchwork is that the fabric doesn't move and the sewing machine sort of gobbles up our patchwork and the needle just pushes it down into the machine there's a really simple way to stop that happening and I'm going to show you this is another of my top tips so what you're gonna do is you're gonna hold your top and bobbin thread using your right hand so I've got hold of my two threads in my right hand and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hold that thread taut I've got my patches in place and I'm gonna start to sew and as I start to sew I'm going to gently pull backwards on those threads just to move my patch onto the feed dogs of my machine so here we go and then as soon as I've taken those first couple of stitches I can let go of the thread and now my machine will happily feed the fabric through I'll take my pins out before I get to them there we go so I've sewn that first seam down the side I like to cut my threads as I get to them so there's no big cleanup at the end now once you've sewn that scene it's time to press so I've got my little pressing surface and my iron here and if you press as you go you'll get much flatter much better patchwork now the first thing to do is to set your scene so I've left the patches one on top of another just as I sewed them and what I'm going to do is I'm going to put my eye and down on top of the patch I'm not moving it around I'm not rubbing back and forth I'm just pressing down to put a little bit of heat into that scene this is what's called setting your seam and what it will do is it will help those stitches to bed into the patchwork it tightens them up a little bit and it just means that our scene will lie flatter now once you've done that we're gonna flip the top shape back and I like to finger press and I just use my thumb nail to push that scene from the center outwards and that flattens the seam and it tells the fabric which way it needs to go now my last pressing tip for you is when you press a scene don't press against to the seam press with the seam so press in the same direction that you sewed that seam and then you'll avoid distorting that seam that you've just sewn you sewed it straight now let's press it straight and now we've got a lovely flat perfect scene and we've done one half of our flying geese unit so once we've done that we can put the other half square triangle on the other side and this is what I want you to notice now if I hold this up can you see where the dog-ear is clipped off we now have perfect alignment right here at the bottom there's no little triangle hanging a over the edge is perfect and spot-on and I can so that seemed easily so again hold on to your threads drop your presser foot and as you take those first couple of stitches I want you just to gently pull back on the threads to help guide your patchwork through the Machine clip your threads and then repeat the process so we're going to set the seam then we're going to flip it back and finger press from the center out and then finally we're going to press that scene in the same direction that we've sewn it in and then I want you to see what we've got there is a perfect flying goose unit it's perfectly straight at the top it's straight at the corners it's a perfect rectangle if our patchwork is perfect it's gonna go together like a dream there'll be no tugging no cursing no crying no bumps or ripples the whole process is going to be easier and the reason why is because your cuts were perfect with that key quilt and your sewing impressing was perfect because you did it step by step now once we've done that we just need to make the other seven units and we can put our block together so let's jump ahead to that stage okay so right here I've got my eight flying geese units and I've got them laid out now what I need to do is sew them together into pairs and we're going to put one of the medium blue and one of the dark blue together so we make this unit right here now what we're going to do is set them out first of all and this is a really good visual check to make sure that the geese are going in the right direction because it's really easy when you're doing particularly a lot of sewing to get one turned round the wrong where or the dark fabric on top of the medium instead of the medium on top of the dark and if you set everything out in front of you first and do that visual check you'll have far less of those sort of sewing problems and having to unpick so we've done that and we've checked that they're in the right place now I'm going to flip the bottom patch up and line up the raw edges and when you line up the raw edges of patches like this it's a good idea to not only make sure that the edge is aligned that you're about to sew but make sure that the sides are aligned and the bottom is aligned as well they should fit together and if all the sewing is nice and accurate they will now I when I'm making flying geese I like to push my seam allowances out towards what we call the sky this is the goose and this is the sky and I like to push them out even if that fabrics lighter and the reason why will become apparent when I show you right here can you see here where the two seams cross over each other and we can now see exactly where those two seams cross my final seam is going to go across the bottom and I need to literally just nip that cross as I'm sewing and I should get a perfect flying geese unit so we're going to pin those together a couple of pins should do and then I can sew it through the machine now even if you're making lots of these blocks and for my mini quilt you're going to need to make two of them they are Dutchman's puzzle blocks it's always a good idea to make one block start to finish before you start making multiple blocks but once you've done that and you've made one block you can start doing what I call chain piecing or what's known as chain piecing and that means that once one units has been sewn through your machine you can get your next patches ready don't clip the threads just get your next patch ready just pop a couple of pins in and then lift your presser foot tuck your next patch underneath and then continue to sew now doing this chain piecing will speed up the construction process but it will also help to conserve bobbin and top threads and we all know how annoying it is to have to stop sewing to change the bobbin so if you chain piece you'll have fewer of those changes to do so once you've sewn your units you can snip them apart and then we're going to do exactly the same as before we can set our seams and then press our seams and then we'll be ready to put our block together so once we've got all of our four units owned let me show you how they go together just give them one final press fab and we should have four flying geese units that all look the same now it's always worth having a quick measure up at this point to make sure that your unit measures the correct dimensions now if you're using the 12 inch cube then each of these units should measure half of that size plus your half inch seam allowance so in other words each of these units should measure six and a half inches square if you're using the six inch cube for example each of these units should measure three and a half inches square so it's really worth just measuring them and checking that they're the right size before you start putting them together accuracy at every single stage will help to make the whole process easier and more successful now the last thing that we need to do is turn these units to create the Dutchman's puzzle block but before I do that I just want to show you how versatile this unit is it's one of my favorites we can put long lines of them together to create great borders we can have them set together to create all kinds of blocks we can turn them around to create different blocks and sew them together there's so many different things you can do with a flying geese unit but we're making the Dutchman's puzzle so let's start and what you want to create is a windmill effect going round to the center so when all four units are together can you see how its created a windmill effect that's spinning around [Music] so all we need to do now is so these four units together so have them set out in front of you like this and then flip them together and I like to flip right to left and right to left and get them lined up and then I'll take my top unit make sure everything's lined up nicely and you can add a couple of pins if you want to and then we're going to sew that scene so again quarter-inch seam allowance and so from top to bottom now again using that same chain piecing method we can take the next unit down make sure that the edges are lined up underneath the foot of your machine and carry on sewing clip your threads and then again we're going to set those seams so we'll just pop it on the ironing board a little bit of heat on the seams just to help the stitches bed in and then we're going to open out our block great and then what I need to make sure is that this seam allowance here is pressed one way and this seam allowance here is pressed in the opposite direction so again I'm just going to finger press that seam allowance down to tell my fabric which way I want it to go and this side I want the seam allowance to go in the opposite direction and the reason for that is because when I sew my blocks together I want all of those seam allowances to nest in the middle so a little bit of heat to press it and now if I bring this top edge down you'll see here that my seam allowance is at the bottom go towards the left and my seam allowances on the top go to the right and that's going to allow a much flatter seam make sure that you Center is nicely lined up and then we can so our final scene make sure everything stays nice and flat is your sewing make sure that your seam allowances stay nice and flat and that's that final long scene there we go so last little bit we're going to set our scene so again apply a little bit of heat along the scene and then open it out finger press from the center outwards and give it one final press just make sure that your block lays nice and flat and that you're happy that everything's in the right place and there we go there's our first block the Dutchman's person so for my mini sampler you're going to need to make two of those blocks they're the easiest one to start with so make those and set them aside and then we can get on with our next two blocks now our next two blocks that we're going to make are the folded star now the folded star you can see on my quilt that's hanging on the wall in the top left hand corner and the bottom right corner and this is using a couple of the same units that we used before but we're also going to introduce one new shape so we're going to need the half square triangle so dye number five again and that's going to be used for the you okay there we go so that's the chisel die now this leads me on to something else when we cut out a shape which is symmetrical so for example a square or a rectangle it doesn't matter whether the shape is fabric right side down all right side up because the shape is symmetrical all of our shapes are going to come out looking the same they're all going to be squares they're all going to be triangles but if we've got a shape which isn't symmetrical like the chisel sometimes we need to treat this shape differently we need to put our fabric on top of it differently let me show you what I mean so first of all we're going to cut some chisels using the fan folding method so I've got a piece of fabric here and again I want to make sure that I'm cutting on the lengthwise grain so make sure that your selvedge is running down one edge and I've got two layers of fabric here so I've got right side facing up and then I've got wrong side facing up and then I'm also going to fan fold my fabric over so that I've got four layers of fabric so two of my layers of fabric will have the right side facing up and two of my layers of fabric are going to have the wrong side facing open so we'll pop the cutting mat on top and then we'll get our go big out ready okay make sure your fabrics nice and flat before you cut it and then through we go so this is using the fan fold method with a non symmetrical shape and let's see what we've cut so we've got our chisel shape but look what's happening because we've used fabric that's fan folded one facing up one facing down what we've ended up cutting our pairs of shapes we've got a right facing and a left facing now for some blocks you'll want that but for other blocks you'll want them all to go in the same direction now the folded star that we're going to make for this sound player needs four chisels that all face the same way so sometimes when you're cutting your fabric rather than fan folding we need to stack our fabrics so I'm going to show you how to do that instead so start with your piece of fabric and then what you're going to need to do is cut a piece of fabric and then cut it in half so that now when we lay our fabric down we can put all of the right sides facing up or if you want the chisel to face the other way we can have all of the wrong side of the fabric facing up and then those chisels will face in the opposite direction so if I put two layers on top and cut then I'll have two that both go the same way great so now you can see we've got two shapes that both face the right way and that's what we want we need for chisel shapes cut just like that so I've got my four chisel shapes and I'm also going to need to cut some half square triangles and some squares so using your dye number five you're going to cut a total of eight triangles using your dye number two which is your small square you're going to cut a total of four squares and those all need to be cut in your light background fabric all right so once you've got all of those cut out we can get to the piecing and we're gonna jump straight to that section now okay so I've got my pieces all cut out and I've pieced these together already but I'm going to show you how to piece one of the units so that you know exactly where you're going with this so we've got I've used two different blues here just to mix things up a little bit so I've got two in my dark blue and two in my medium blue I've also cut out my half square triangles using a blue as well so I've got four in a light background fabric four in my blue contrast and then I've got my chisel shapes and I'm remaining four half-square triangles and we're going to stitch these units so all we need to do here is to sew one small half square triangle onto the side of the chisel shape and that's what I've done right here so right sides together and so set your seam and flip back make four units that say and then over here I've got my next four units and for that I've sewn my two half square triangles together one blue and one light background and pressed it and then I've sewn one of my dye number two squares onto the side and it's really important that it looks just like this so that you've got your large square on one side attached to the blue all right just like that and then the last thing that we need to do is set out our block so let's do that now if you've used for at two different colors then you can get a little bit of a sort of effect as you spin them around so we're going to start by setting them in a windmill just like that and this would look great actually is a different block you could just sew rectangles of fabric here and create a simpler pinwheel effect and that would just be using dye number eight so you could mix and match your blocks if you wanted to but I'm gonna add in my last units now when you add these in you want to make sure that your square is in the corner and that your two small half square triangles cut out in your light background fabric are going to meet and they need to meet in all four units you can see how easily it would be to get confused if you just grabbed all your units and start sewing them but if you set everything out in front of you like this then it's very very obvious where everything goes all right so to make one of my units all I'm going to do is sew these two rectangular units together so flip them right to left make sure everything matches up nicely and then we're going to pop a couple of in there we go and then I can sew that seam again use a quarter of an inch seam allowance and sew from top to bottom now when you sell units like this together personally I like to sew them one at a time get the threads clipped get them pressed or finger pressed and then place them back where they belong in your block and that just helps to keep track of where everything is and it stops me getting confused or lost I find it quite easy to get my blocks muddled up and next thing you know one of you units is facing in the wrong direction and I hate on picking so I avoided at all costs so although it takes a little bit longer to so one unit cut your threads and put it back in the end you save time because hopefully there'll be no one picking and everything will be in the right place so our finger press that's seen back put it back where it belongs and I'll keep going and so all my units now you see I've managed to put that back in the wrong place that's better so again I'm just gonna do my visual check to make sure I've put those back yep that's right and we'll so the last two units together I'm using bright reloj yellow threads I'm using bright yellow thread to show you in this demonstration so you can see where I'm sewing the scene but you'd be better off using a nice neutral thread something like a a greyish green or something something sludgy sludgy is really good when it comes to sewing and then my last unit to sew together is this unit here and again once you've sewn these units together it's worth measuring them and each of your units should measure half the size of your cube plus half an inch for seam allowances so if you're using the eight inch cube each of your units should measure four and a half inches so that's my last unit stitched and again I'm just going to place it back one final visual check to make sure all of the units are in the right place and now I can sew those four units together all of the blocks in the 72 that we give you with the cube are based on what we call a four patch and that means that every block is made up of those four units sewn together or it can be broken down into four units that get sewn together of course there are many many more ways that you can use your cube and companions but that's probably the easiest so I've sown that unit together I'll just place it back where it belongs and then my last scene and again I'm doing this one slightly differently I'm sowing the four units together in separate pairs because you know there's a little bit more complexity to this block and I want to make sure that I'm keeping everything going in the right direction I'm not going to one pick now my last thing is to push my seam allowances towards the right and then towards the left so that my seam allowances will nest together and it's a good idea to give that a little press with your iron so it right lies really nice and flat rather than just finger pressing and then the last thing I'll do is match up my Center and so that seam from top to bottom so although this block looks quite complicated it's actually a very very simple block to piece and once you've done the Dutchman's puzzle you'll have no problem doing this so I've sowed my last scene I'll cut my threads now I am just gonna give this a little press so that it all lies nice and flat we'll just press those seam allowances all nice and flat at the back and just set my seams as well and then the last thing to do is to open that block up and again when I'm doing this I'm just doing visual checks to make sure things like the center match up really well and the points on my star line up really well and everything is pleasing you know you're gonna live with your quilts for many many years and if there's something in it that you don't like it really is worth I'm picking that seam and redoing it so that every time you look at your work you're really pleased with the results and that's my folded star block all finished now you're gonna need to make two of these blocks and mix up the fabrics to your heart's content but keep the star as your focus fabrics your blues or reds or whatever your favorite color is and your backgrounds is something nicely contrasting I love to use really bright fabrics sometimes for my focus and then I'll use black or charcoal gray for the background that really makes the colors pop so you could do that as well and that would make the brightest most beautiful baby quilt I think that would be stunning so that's your folded star block you need to make two of those okay so the last unit that we're going to make the last block that we're going to make is the center block for my sampler and that is the variable star and the variable star has some units in it that you will recognize it's got some flying geese units and it's got some squares in the corners but it's also got another really really useful patchwork unit in it which is what's called a square in a square and this is again one of those basic building blocks that is so so useful if you have a little look at this quilt which is right next to me you'll see that square in a square really made into a feature in quilt in those bright yellow centers to my stars that's the square in a square unit so it's it's one that's really worth getting to know and practicing making because you can use it for so many different blocks right dyes that you're going to need for this block you're going to need dye number two again which is your small square that's going to make the corners of the block you're also going to need dye number five that's your small half square triangle you'll need dye number four which is your quarter-square triangle or what I like to call flying geese and then the last eye that you're going to use is one that we haven't used so far and that's dye number six now dye number six is your square in a square Center now although this looks just like an ordinary square it's actually going to form that center square on point the measurements are quite odd in terms of measuring it's not a shape I have ever enjoyed cutting out with a rotary cutter but of course with my Accu quilt it's so so easy to do so let's grab that died and here it is dye number six which is the square on point now it looks just like an ordinary square but this is going to be the center of your unit now we just need to cut one of these so let's grab some fabric and again I like to use my scraps up so I don't throw away any of the bits I like to keep them and then I'll lay that on top I've still got a little bit of selvedge left on this scrap so if I make sure that's on the left or the right and goes through my die cutting machine north-to-south then I know that I'm cutting on the lengthwise grain so we'll pop that through and that's cut my perfect square on point that isn't going to go like this it's going to go like this so let me show you how you piece your square on point okay so I've got all the pieces cut out for my final block and I've got some half square triangles I've got my square on point for the center I've also got some corners let me show you how this goes together so there's that square on point for the center that's the one I just cut and you're going to need four contrasting half square triangles cut using dye number five and they're going to be stitched around it this is our square on point units now we're also going to need to cut some flying geese now last time we cut off our goose using blue fabric but this time we need to cut one lot of flying geese so four of these triangles in a light fabric we also need to use dye number five to cut eight small half square triangles and I've already sewn these together to make a flying goose unit and these are going to go around the center square on point and these are going to make the star points so they go around the edge like so and then last of all I've got four squares cut using dye number two and they're going to form the corners now I've mixed up my fabrics here and use two different fabrics I was scrap busting and so I'm just gonna put those in opposite corners just to balance them out and that's going to create my final variable star which I'm going to use in the center of my sampler so we already know how to piece this and sewing the squares on is easy but let me show you how to sew that Center square on point block so I'll get rid of the other pieces for now now again I like to set out all my pieces on the table in front of me so that I know that everything is in the right place before I begin now I'm going to flip one of these small triangles over and it's going to fit beautifully on the side of my square on point okay so once that's on I can sew my quarter inch seam across that side so let's go straight to the sewing now we'll sell don't forget when you're sewing something like this it's a really good idea to hold on to your threads and just gently guide your patches through your sewing machine when you take those the first couple of stitches set your seam and then we're going to flip that triangle back that we've just added and finger press it back and then I'm just going to press in the direction that I've sewn now we've added a triangle to one side the second triangle that we add we need to add on the opposite side so we'll flip that over make sure everything is lined up and our raw edges are aligned and then I can sew that seam from top to bottom just as before okay set your seam and then press that back perfect so we've got our two opposite corners now our last two triangles are going to go on the remaining two sides and this is where having those dog ears clipped off really comes into its own because what I want you to be able to see is that when I put that triangle on top the corners line up perfectly there's no triangle hanging over the edge everything is a lovely straight line it just makes the whole process so much easier and it's so much easier for everybody to get accuracy even if you're a brand-new quilter so we'll sew these last two seams so I'm just showing my last two seams and that's my last two triangles again on opposite corners and I like to so each one set my seam and then press it back out of the way and then the last triangle fits on perfectly and if you get that beautiful accurate cut right at the start which you're always going to do with your Accu quilt it means that you're sewing you've got a much better chance of getting really nice accurate patchwork those better cuts really do make better quilts so we'll just set that seam and then we'll flip it back and there's our square on point all finished so that's our center unit now to finish off this block all I need to do is sew my flying geese and my squares around the outside of it make sure that you turn your flying geese the right way remember that this time the sky portion which I've got in blue here form the points of my star so it's really important that you get those against your square on point rather than this way round but what I want to show you before I sew this together is how we could so easily make a completely different block that would still be really gorgeous using same units but would have quite a different look so that's a totally different looking block using exactly the same units with one change I've just turned the flying goose unit around all right so just make sure that when you make this block you have all of your units the right way round so this block is going to be put together in a slightly different way we're going to sew it together in three rows so I'm going to start by separating out my three rows so that you can see them really easily at home so I've got my top row and my bottom row which are exactly the same a square flying goose unit and another square and we're just going to sew these end to end and we're going to make two the same our Center row row number two is going to have a flying geese unit sewn to each side of the center square on point so we'll sew those three rows together and then we're going to press our seam allowances so each time you sew a row it's a good idea to press your seam allowances and what I'm gonna do is Row 1 and Row 3 I'm going to press my seam allowances outwards okay so I'm going to do exactly the same at the top and I'll press my seam allowances out and then on Row 2 I'm gonna press my seam allowances inwards and that means then that my seams will nest here and here and the whole blocks going to sit lovely and flat so we'll sew our last two rows together okay so we'll just so the last row and again here because I like to press my seam allowances towards the sky on a flying goose unit I can see exactly where I need my final seam to cross those two previous seam allowances I need it to literally just nip across that square and that's going to give me perfect points so remember this time you're going to press your seam allowances inwards towards the centre of your block and that will ensure that the whole block nests together beautifully so last flying goose unit to add on and again make sure that you press your seam allowance towards the center of your block so I like to finger crease it to make sure that the fabric knows which way to go and then give it a quick press and then we can do our final two seams so we're going to sew Row 1 to 2 and Row 2 to 3 okay so we'll do that next it's a really good idea to match up your unit intersection so where the seam allowances go in opposite directions your seam should nest so if you have a look right here can you see where my seam allowances are pressed in opposite directions I've got one going this way and I've got one going the opposite direction and they will nest together now it's very tempting to want to push a pin through this intersection but if you try and do that you can end up distorting the intersection so what I prefer to do is match up the intersection and then I'll put a pin one side and then I'll put a pin on the other side so that intersection isn't going anywhere but I haven't distorted it by trying to shove a pin through it so do that on both sides and then you can get straight to your sewing and so that final block make sure you take out pins before you get to them don't sew over pins not great for you machine not great for your pins either okay that's one scene done and then exactly the same thing at the bottom we're sewing row two and three together match up the intersections in them if you want don't always pin everything sometimes I just hold the intersections together really carefully and then once I've done that I can match up my next one and hold balance and there we go that's all of the seam sewn so a quick setting of the seams and then I can press my seams back and one final press and we're done so those are all a fuel blocks so by now you should have made five blocks because we just need one of the variable star blocks and that's all finished so that's going to be the center of our quilt so that makes the center and then we've got two folded stars and two Dutchman's puzzle the very final thing that we need to make our are setting triangles and I'm just going to show you how those go together they're very very simple and straightforward you're going to need to cut out some squares using dye number two and you'll need for setting triangles so you'll need four of these four patches so cut out eight blue squares and eight light background squares sew them together light and dark light and dark and then sew those together to make a four patch really simple unit and then you're also going to need to cut out some large half square triangles this is using dye number three this is your largest half square triangle and once you've sewn your four patch together and I'll just quickly finish sewing that unit together okay that's own and we can give that a press then all we need to do is to sew our triangles on either side so they're gonna get sewn on like this so we'll put our four patch on point so it looks like a diamond and then we'll so one of our triangles to one side and press it back and then the final triangle will go on this side and we'll sew that down and then press it back now using half square triangles on the outside edge of a quilt brings one slight complication and that is that the outside edge is going to be on the bias when we cut a square into two half square triangles we're cutting diagonally and that exposes the bias edge of the fabric which can be stretchy now to counteract that before I cut out these half square triangles I starched my fabric I just used some ordinary laundry starch sprayed the fabric ironed it dry and this just makes the fabric a little bit firmer a little bit stiffer then I cut my large half square triangles that is going to make them much more stable to sew together to make my unit the other thing that I like to do once I've sewn that unit together is to sew a line of what we call stay stitching along that outer edge so I'm just going to use my sewing machine on a straight stitch and I'm going to sew about an eighth of an inch from the edge I'm just gonna show from one side to the earth I'm because I'm using bright bright threads you'll be able to see where my stitching is this is going to be hidden inside any borders or binding that you add to your quilt so don't worry about this showing but you only want to sew it at about an eighth of an inch in from the edge so there you can see where I've done that line of stay stitching along the top edge and that's just going to help to stabilize that bias edge and stop it stretching out of place and that's all of the unit's that I need to make my mini sampler quilt so let me just show you how I put all of those pieces together okay then so to put your finished quilt together you've made your five blocks you've also made your for setting triangles and I'm just going to show you how easy it is to put this together so you're going to lay out your blocks first of all the variable star is going to go in the center and you can see that I've placed it on point and then I've got my folded stars I the side of it so here's my square block that I made and all I'm going to do is place it on point but when I sew them together all right so we've got our Center row so we're just going to sew our seams here and here so we end up with a row of three blocks together that makes the center then I need to sew two more rows I've got one Dutchman's puzzle block in the middle here and then I've got two of my setting triangles one sewn either side so all I'm going to do is place my setting triangle at the top there and I'm going to sew this seam right here and then I'm going to put another one against the other edge of the Dutchman's puzzle block and I'm going to sew hee so you're going to make that row and then you're going to do exactly the same to make this row here on the opposite side and then once those three rows are sewn together you just need to sew these long straight seams to join rows one two and three now the last thing that I did to finish off my quilt top was to add a border now our next quilting classroom is all about adding borders but here I've just used my three and a half inch strip die to cut straight of grain strips and I have sewn them around the center quilt top although it's an octagon don't be put off it's really really easy to do all I did was so on stray pieces straight borders on opposite sides so I started with the top and the bottom and I sewed straight pieces across and I let them hang off the edges once I'd sewn them on and pressed them back I then used a ruler lined it with the edge of the block just coming off the edge and I trimmed that edge off at that angle and I did that on both sides so once I had added the top and the bottom border like that I added the two sides in exactly the same way so I added this border right here and the border on the other side once those were pressed back in trimmed I could add my last four sides and it really was very easy layer it quilt it and then bind it to finish and your octagon sampler quilt is made so I hope you've enjoyed our first quilting classroom with a Kea quilt in this lesson we've learned how to cut our fabrics and piece the basic units and make that simple sampler using five blocks and peace setting triangles I hope you'll join me for our next quilting classroom and don't forget to sir subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you get to find out when we've posted a new video and be one of the first to see it thanks for joining me today and I'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Create & Craft TV

Views: 109,384

Keywords: Octagonal, octagon, baby quilt, quilting, Die cutting machines for quilting, Quilt dies, Accuquilt, quilt designs, easy beginner project, geometric, Wall hanging, table toppers, sewing, machine sewing, brother sewing machine

Id: LWZt-IAHFec

Length: 76min 20sec (4580 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 19 2018