Beyond the 9 Patch - Making it Fun - Episode #83

hey welcome back to part two of our nine patch series this is going to be a little less than traditional today and i know what you're thinking there's a checkerboard up on the wall again what kind of bait and switch is this well you'll see let's get started hey don't turn the channel it's not a bait and switch it looks like a checkerboard kind of like the last one we did but this is quilting so we we grow we build we are learning from the steps we learned in our last video on the nine patch so welcome back everybody i'm so blessed you are here uh if it's your first time i am rob appel from michael miller fabrics welcome to making it fun this channel is all about supporting your local favorite quilt shop your online retailers and all the fantastic michael miller products they carry so we're always using the basics here and we're having a blast if you didn't catch the first portion of the version of the video what i'm trying to say is i did a very traditional very basic nine patch either using squares or strip piecing and so you can enjoy that video some of the strip piecing methods you're going to want to know if you don't already because i'm just going to jump right in as if you do because we're going to keep using those methods for today now in the last video i promised a completely new approach to the nine patch project and like i said you look on the wall and it looks very similar we were talking about that checkerboard effect but not only am i using the wonderful hashtag and the fairy frost and the cotton couture these colors were chosen specifically to match into our beautiful ombre fabrics this is the ombre border from the quintessentials line and let me just open it all the way up so you can see that it's so cool whoops so cool on this fabric is that the color variegates and you can see like four to five major tones in there from edge to edge and then we've also put in these wonderful little gold and black triangles or pink triangles i should say tonal triangles so that you know which direction the fabric's running isn't that wonderful and it works great if you look at the example even closer on the wall all of the arrows are running in the same way this is half of what we've started before you tuned in today so i was doing strip piece this portion is exactly the same and if you're brand new to this video these are three and a half inch by the length of the fabric the 45 of the fabric and on the ombre border you can see it goes very specifically from a dark selvage all the way to a light selvage one of the concepts in making nine patch quilt blocks is your after contrast you want to make sure you can see each individual square within the quilt so i'm wanting you to use like complementary colors like an orange and a blue i'm wanting you to use high contrast you know valued shades that are very different if you're doing scrappy you want to make sure that you really get that gradient or that color effect from your nine patches you're making everything the same size so it's very easy to reassemble regardless of what colors you're using that's kind of where we left off as well so these strip sets were made exactly the way that the strip sets were made before i made these into these squares but i did make two as a reminder you always need kind of an opposites or a counter effect going on so what you are seeing is the remnants the other sides of what is on the wall and so i had two blue strips one pink i'll call it uh two pink one blue so if you're following along for the calculations if you're on if you're already halfway out the door to your quilt shop three strips at least three and a half inches so i basically was using a quarter yard it's a half yards excuse me and when i'm all done i'm able to get like eight blocks from each combo set so we can just build and build and build and have fun once the strips were made of course all i did was i rotated my fabrics and i've already been cutting down you can see this is that nice clean edge from already using the rotary cutter what's going to be key here if you want a gradient nine patch like we're working on now i want you to make sure you keep all of your strips in play and we're not going to fast forward this part of the video i'm going to show you how i did this and what i did is i cut basically each strip and i kept it in color order constantly coming back to that three and a half inch mark along the edge and both of these perpendicular marks making sure i'm making a really nice cut and then i'm stacking these pieces as you can see there one on top of the next on top of the next and we're going to need to do that for both of our strip sets i'm even keeping the arrows heading in the same direction because i'm going to keep them heading in the same direction in the blocks that was an intentional choice i made early on and it's really fun to work with these and i don't believe i actually said it when i was showing you how i made the strips i'm hoping it was obvious one of the colors was light against the dark end so the light pink against the dark blues and because the fabric runs from dark to light you just railroad or rotate one of the colors so that's what i was also doing to maximize the contrast within our strips was i was going instead of dark against dark i was going dark against the light as well small dog that i'm building down there with my scraps okay so now we're going gonna do the same thing so this is color grouping one i'm on color grouping two now and as i find that same three and a half inch mark along the side and i'm double checking everything nice and square now as i cut these i'm gonna build a new stack and just stay nice and organized this will make our color sorting very easy and our last cut here let's not get so far ahead of ourselves they don't turn out nice okay so stacking again in order all the way across our variegated strips from the quintessential ombre border mouthful now what we're going to do i just need to check up on the design wall because this is physically the last square i was using so it had two of the blue edges two of the blue edges were here so that means is my countdown i need this strip next okay so the last red strip was here it came off of here then it went blue so now i'm going to come down here and i'm going to make a square that is two reds in order and the blue just remember pulling from the light sides of our stack okay so this comes in here like this this is the middle square this is the fold off the bolt so you can see right now some of these triangles are going to switch directions and stuff it's going to be fun that way so in the center you'll have a little bit of traffic of triangles but the rest will all be heading one direction or the other so this block is built and i'm going to set it down here and i'm going to keep it very organized now i use two from the red pile so this time i'll use two from the blue pile keeping them in order so i'm just going to slide them down this way and then i'm bringing in the corresponding red from the red pile and you can see how the variegation runs right right through because that strip you could see would have been right in there right isn't that cool okay so with that being said then this becomes the second square and those were the blues so that i have the two more reds the one more blue and the last one here so with half of the strips left i have four new squares on the table i have four up on the wall so that's the eight i was just talking about from the two strips uh technically a half yard of each of the colors very easy and now we're just going to sew these together and put them into this grouping and that is one other variable for making what we're going to call the variegated nine patch so technically this would be a wonderful two color project two fabric project but it would not read as the same two colors all the way throughout the quilt now what you choose to do with the layout whether all of the colors wash from one side of the other or maybe they're going to wash from back and forth maybe you're going to make double the amounts of everything and go up and down michael miller has eight different colors of the ombre that all work nicely together so you could actually use all of the colors and make a beautiful rainbow nine patch with the variegated so it's very much like the first quilt in the first video it is a solid checkerboard two colors easy done but with the variegated fabrics it really adds some interest and impact now for this one i don't think i would add in the sashing squares on it because i really like the way the color just just floats just you know glows throughout the fabrics but again that would be your choice and you can use your magic design wall at home like i use mine to find if you want to audition in those sashings as well if i was using sashings in a project like this i would go super high contrast to really let the variation the gradient of the fabric show up like a white or a black and i know black's my favorite color but you can see and this is why i have the black ironing board what that does to ignite the energy in the fabrics themselves so we have other things to cover in today's video i won't even take the time to stitch these together if you need to know how to put these squares together please check the last video on sewing together the columns in the nine patch it'll be very easy it's all part of that basics nine patch video but this was one of the things i wanted to share with you as a really cool creative mental muscle builder on what we can do just working with what we already know and just changing up the fabrics a little bit i do need to keep these organized so excuse me a moment while i really gently slide them up and out of the way move all of this over here because i will sew them back together but i just want to show you the next thing that i think is super cool so i also have it hiding under the table i'll be right back that's right we do have a other fun way and i mentioned a little dynamite uh portion of this video and so what i'm gonna show you now is what is referred to as the exploding nine patch uh something i want to point out this is amazing basically this is great i love this i did not come up with this technique of course but it's super cool now it's part of the reason i didn't want to sew the blocks together in the last video because i want to do more of these blocks with the traditional blocks and it's a very easy way i will point out we are starting with our traditional blocks as you see standard checkerboard nine patch we're going to now add some character and creativity to them but it's going to change the size so if that affects your calculations just be aware of that now i'm going to walk you through it over and over again because it's a mind blow if you haven't seen this before it's really cool so imagine this is a nine patch it probably looks like a nine patch from where you're seated however if i were to come through here and cut this a couple of more ways and divide it it really changes it into a whole new block let's start at the basics this is what we do we start at the basics and we build up look at this little block it's really a nice little block as a unit and if you were just going for these units it would have still probably been faster to make this unit this way i'll show you in a minute instead of making all of these little teeny parts and pieces man if i had to put like a little one and a half inch square in there or two inch square it would have not been so square when i was done with it so by being able to build a big block like this and then chop it up again adds to the efficiency and accuracy that some patchworkers are really after so what did i do here you can see it's been cut but let me talk about how it was cut now i'm going to bring another one into play i'm going to grab a rotary cutter and or just to say should say sharp rotary cutter and ruler because good sharp cutters really make a difference now what you need to do is you need to measure your block i know that if i lay this bad boy on there i am at nine and a half inches because i built the math of this almost specifically nine and a half inches i need to find where my dead center point is so one way is to divide nine and a half in half so half of nine is four and a half half of a half of is a quarter so that's four and three quarters that i would then need to measure from one edge over very easy to do let's try it so i said it was going to be uh four and three quarters even with the ruler upside down i can still do that and when i am doing it i'm looking at the line as it runs through the block on the edges on the seam allowances on the seam allowances running perpendicular all of that is coming into play because it's going to help me make a nice square clean cut we'll make two cuts and i do not want you to move any of your fabric until the finish of the second cut as i started to do that math i thought to myself it's going to be really hard to keep four and three quarters straight on my ruler and in my head if i cut through all of these blocks to make these into exploding nine patch blocks so the other thing you can do is you can actually on this particular kind of block is i happen no remember our strips were three and a half to start with if you're brand new to quilting you lose a quarter inch on both sides so my three and a half is now three way easier to divide three and a half than nine and a half in half half of three is one and a half remember we're shooting for center let me make sure i'm ready to rock i'm going to find this center line again part of the reason accuracy was important to me earlier when building the blocks now i'm just going to find a one and a half inch mark and i'm using only this seam i don't care about this edge at all anymore because i'm going to cut one and a half inches so let me just make sure because i don't get a second chance at this right you want to make sure you're focused so now i'm going to come in here i'm looking at it looks terrific and i'm going to cut my first one and a half inch cut off of this edge and i am not moving this fabric to make sure the cut went through hence the sharp blade now i'm going to rotate this down here so now i'm pulling one and a half off of this center seam line here i'm trying to make sure all three squares are lined up lined up this way i'm going to rotate my body so i have a nice right-handed cut even though my sewing machine is in my way and i'm going to slide through here now and that is all done just like the other block and now you can see how i just got four blocks out of the one block that was a nine patch and now these are super unique a couple things i really want to drive home with any kind of exploding or disappearing block it's best if all four units are the exact same size and they are squares because squares can be rotated any different direction to make all kinds of neat stuff if these happen to be rectangles you're going to be limited to swapping corners things like that but you won't be able to be as creative as we could so let's start it back at the beginning boom here we are with our nine patch dynamite it explodes from here let's take a couple of quick and easy rotations i'm going to take one corner rotate it 180 degrees take the other quarter rotate it 180 degrees and if i were to stitch this back together it looks kind of like a card trick block doesn't it pretty cool it's super interesting if you ask me i've got these medium squares this big chunk of color i've got these tiny little small squares and now you could take something like this and put it on the magic design wall and see what will happen which is going to be really cool so let me show you what that looks like there you go so you can see that really expands and pretty terrific okay now we come back to here and we can do all kinds of different things if you really wanted to you could have rotated all four blocks however now we just have a square with a frame and that might have been easier to make another way you could rotate everything a quarter turn do be careful you know what can happen when we do with any of these blocks but we can play we can do all kinds of fun things in here i mean just really creative really clever so that now is basically just taking the block and making a very symmetrical quilt which would look like a square with a sashing and a cornerstone if you didn't pick up on that when this translated over and over again you can do lots and lots amazing okay so let's do one more rotation for all of you let's put this back together in the center while you've got it there okay and then what you might be able to do is take one of these here and we're going to rotate the bottom corner down and this top corner up so just a one quarter rotation 90 degree rotation and now what we're going to get is these really neat what looks like these sub strips that go together down the center i'll take a quick photograph of this and throw it on the magic design wall here you go brad right love it now back onto the table you can see that matching up these points in the center and these points as we sew together will help keep our blocks really precise if that's something that you're after so a layout like this is really cool and it would be much easier to make the nine patch blocks with the strip set examples i showed you before and then chop them down this way super cool but you know i never stop at easy right i like to keep going and going and going my dear friend susan always accuses me accurately of trying to do too much with every project so here we go susan this one's for you now super cool project but let's take something like this exploding block actually let's use this one i see that because we actually have make sure make sure i have a print solid print solid as i go through again i know all of the strips are the same size so i can quickly come in here find a one and a half inch mark off of my ruler from the center line slice it and dice it and the reason i wanted to show you these if you didn't see the other video again please might want to check this out this was made from random leftover strips and i did strip piece it and put them back together to make the nine patch squares like we were doing but those squares were made as more random squares to give kind of a different appearance in a very traditional layout so the real reason i wanted to make those super wild blocks in the nine patches so we could get here with them because now that we're here with them you can see how fun this would be if i were again to rotate here and rotate here some very interesting things going on you don't have to leave them in the same position though maybe you would like to do something like this so we can rotate and we can rotate again and you can pick up on the turquoise line reading this way the orange line reading this way you're going to get these new random colors going in all different directions the layout i showed you a moment ago with the strips with the little pebbles or the little squares lining up super super cool very very fun to work with and this would go back onto your design wall much like a scrappy project you could go in and you could add sashings and with this project the last project i said make sure your sashings are smaller than your square so if these were three and a half's i do like a one and a half to two but now this block you could either go narrow narrow sashings or big big sashings which would make these blocks almost kind of float into them you could put these blocks on point which would change this whole project completely now what's going to happen though as we go to sew these together let me just show you so let's just let's just stick with this layout they're all wonderful so it doesn't matter i just can't wait to sew it together i'm going to bring this down i'm going to flop this over i'm going to line up my seam allowances i can't guarantee that the nesting is happening anymore because we were only able to do that by going to the dark sides earlier now we're basically we got what we got in front of us this is real quilting now kids we're we're in the thick of it easy enough to chain piece so i'm just going to grab this center seam right here that was where i was looking sew this back together i'm going to go ahead and just press to the rectangle in the middle seam i'm hoping that will then give me a nesting combination so i press from here to there so when i get onto this seam i will press into the rectangle again right so from my small little square over to the rectangle i will rotate it as it was going to fall back in so that those seams have now flip-flopped in that middle point marry those up and that gives you a really nice little something to line up or match in the middle of the block i love to use my seam allowances as my match points again if you're trying to improve your accuracy that's a tip i can offer today and here we go we're putting this last little bit in press this open let your water from your uh iron spit a little on there if it needs to because you're in the middle of filming that's just what happens sometimes anyways kiddos there it is radical block let's take this throw it on the design wall and have some fun looks pretty cool doesn't it now the only pitfall is when we made this block we did lose probably a half of an inch right on both sides so it is no longer the same size as our traditional nine patches were if you wanted to make something that was very unique more on that modern feel where everything is made from the same base of the nine patch block but you're using different sizes and different pieces you could check out the video i did on how to assemble multiple blocks or fitting blocks back together i use a log cabin as an example but the technique would work for random nine patchers as well but this one we could also very easily kind of go in working from center we can shave off a half of an inch technically you know a quarter from both sides is that what i'm missing here yeah so boom i would shave off a quarter all the way around the block and this block would then come down to be the same size it would read as a nine patch the outer blocks would be slightly smaller than the center blocks so it would be kind of unique it might be more of a challenge putting them back together but if it's kind of this wonderful random explosion of color that you're using and that's again why basics works so fantastic and don't even get me started on what would happen if you quilted that oh my gosh could you imagine the way the stitching would look on these fabrics that have just a little bit of something to say but not much like hey thread why don't you say something about this right like machine quilting you can even just see it in the quilt behind me it's incredible so at any rate super excited super blessed hey super wound up it's rob that's how i do it i am really happy you were here today and i hope you've been able to pick up on a couple of fun things what i want to do for the rest of this video now is i'm just going to do like i do sometimes on the magic design wall where you're using the instagram layouts app i'm going to take a bunch of these squares put them all back together in a bunch of different layouts and let you see what kind of happens as we play i'll even do one where i overlap some of these standard nine patches in with some of our exploded nine patches so you can get a feel for that too i know you're loving the magic design while i love hearing from you all in the comments below as a matter of fact we have tackled the log cabin block it's another very traditional very simple very good starting place for us quilters we've now tackled the nine patch i would love to hear from all of you is there another block out there that you're just maybe thinking there's something else we can do with it love to hear from you let me know in the comments below super glad you're here enjoy the magic design wall some of my buddies music from bootsy morengo and we will see you next time on another episode making it fun [Music] wow you are still there thanks for sticking with me till the end of the video i know i get a little long-winded sometimes but if you did enjoy today's video make sure you check out a few of the other ones we've created i think they're terrific and of course please subscribe to the channel make sure you hit the little bell to be notified i don't want you to miss a moment of the fun stay safe and happy sewing

Channel: Making It Fun with Rob Appell

Views: 33,775

Rating: 4.943243 out of 5

Keywords: Michael Miller Fabrics, Rob Appell, nine patch quilt blocks, 9 patch quilt block, easy nine patch, easy 9 patch, exploding 9 patch, exploding nine patch

Id: 9VhAu0PBbx8

Length: 27min 22sec (1642 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 24 2021