Welcome to SewVeryEasy, my name is Laura. And today's block of the month from Quilting Confections is a Disappearing Four-Patch. They are a lot of fun to make and there's many different variations in them, but let me show you how quick and easy it is to put together. To continue with the theme, we have a light print, a dark print, the gray, and the blue. Now press these and cut them to 6½" squares, and you only need one of each color. When they're cut and ready to go, you need to sew them together to make a four-patch. You're going to sew the two here and then the two here. When you have the four sewn together, you will be able to just pull the seam apart in the back, and it's going to open up and give you a little four-patch. You're going to be able to press them in that direction so the seams are going to go in this direction. And when I press this I like to put a little starch on this because it's going to be cut apart, and I have to make sure that I have no little folds; this is nice and flat. The next thing we're going to do is cut this apart. We're going to cut it at 1½" measurement. What I like to do is I like to take these little sticky note arrows and mark the back of the ruler at 1½" in just two areas. That way I don't have to count every single time I need to cut. We need to cut this apart four times, 1½" from that center seam.Place the 1½" arrow on the center seam because this is where you're going to cut it. If you have a second mat it definitely will make it a lot easier. You can get one that has a little bit of a turntable on it, or you can just use a mat. Do not pick this up; you're going to rotate the mat. Then you make your first cut. Then you're going to rotate the mat once and again, following that center sewing line, you're going to go again at that 1½" and then cut it apart. Rotate one more, find your 1½" and cut. And one more rotation at that 1½" mark—you see how nice it is by having those marks—and you cut it. So now I've cut all four sides. When you separate them, this is how the block looks. Now in order to keep the seams going in the direction that you want them to go into, it's easier if you rotate your center bars rather than the squares. So you're going to switch the two on the end here, and then you're going to switch these two. Sew the blocks together first in rows, then you're going to be able to sew the center seams. I will take this board and bring it right over to my Bernina to sew. That way, I will not get the blocks mixed up. Now there is a key to pressing this. If you've pressed the first of the blocks in going this way, when you go to sew the center one on, have the seams pressing out so that they're opposite. If you decide that you want to press these out, then this seam must be pressed in. By having the seams in opposite directions, if you're going to do a quilt they will nestle together. This is what the finished block is going to look like. We're going to trim it down to a 10½" block. You're going to trim it down again using a center measurement. In order to cut this down to a 10½" square you need to find a 5¼" on your ruler. If you have a square, it works great. From your center seam over will be 5¼". From this center seam over is going to be 5¼". Then you'll be able to trim off one side. Turn your block, find the 5¼" from the center; over 5¼" from the center up. This block will be 10½" inches. And now you have your Disappearing Four-Patch and a 10½" square. Now let's see what happens when we change the color. I'm going to make an entire quilt with that same block using this fabric. This is a beautiful Christmas fabric. It's sort of fun and it has these novelty characters on it from Timeless Treasures. It consists of eight fat quarters. I've bought two sets because I want to make it really big so I'm going to be using sixteen fat quarters, and I'm going to put a border on it of a nice Christmas red. I'm going to cut all eight layers together at the same time. Now if you're not comfortable doing eight, you can do four or whatever you're comfortable in. What I've done is I've matched up all of the selvage edges. Now I'm going to be able to trim off the selvage. I know that the outside might not match, but I'm going to get them all the same size. And if you're going to do eight layers, get a larger rotary cutter because it will make it a lot easier. Now I have all the selvages cut off. Now rotate the mat with the fabric, line up the straight edge with the ruler, and you're going to be able to cut, but you want to make sure that you get all of the layers of fabric. Rotate the mat again and you're going to be able to cut the other edge. Rotating again, cut the fourth edge. Next we're going to cut 6½" blocks. Making sure to square it up, cut 6½". Now without moving this, as long as you can see your cutting line you're going to be able to move it over to 6½" again. I'm going to cut the next row. Again, I'm going to move over to see if I can get another 6½" square. Matching up my cut line to 6½", I'm able to trim this little bit off. And without moving the fabric, turn the mat again. Starting from the edge, I'm going to cut over 6½". And again without moving it, as long as I can see the cut line, I'm going to put the cut line on the 6½" mark again. When you separate your piles you should have six piles of 6½"squares, and these are going to be used as a border. Now we have all of the squares ready to sew. Again, I'm going to need four blocks. Instead of four different colors, I'm going to have two different colors, but you can do all different colors if you'd like. And just as before, you're going to make a four-patch. I'm going to use the same measurement at 1½", cutting again on all four corners and turning the mat as I go along. When they're sewn together you will cut them down to the 10½" square just as you did before. And with eight fat quarters you will get twelve blocks, so with sixteen I'm going to get twenty-four. When you go to put them together, you will have two seams that go out and two seams that go in in both blocks. So if they're not matching up, all you need to do is twist the block and now the seams will be opposite and they will nestle together when you go to sew them. So the quilt top has been sewn together and there are six rows with four blocks in each row. The next thing is to add a solid-color border. I've added a 2½" red border because the next border is going to consist of all of these little blocks that we cut out earlier. When we cut out the 6½" squares, these were the leftovers. With that last border on you could call it done, however, every time I see this pattern it reminds me of a gift that has been wrapped and this is the ribbon on it. So in this case, I'm going to make each one of these blocks a gift. To make the gift tags they're very very simple to do. I've taken two pieces of fabric and I have fused them together. Now fusing the fabric together is really like gluing it together. You can get a lot of different products. This particular one leaves the fabric very soft and yet is still firm enough that you're going to be able to write on it or embroider on it, and it is permanent. So you would iron this fusible web onto your one fabric, then you're going to take the paper off and you're going to iron another piece of fabric right over top of it. I'll put a link in the description for the shape that I have used. So I've just cut them out of the big piece of fabric that has been fused together. The next thing I did was just to do a topstitch all the way around in a contrasting thread. So for the top I used a white thread, but for the bottom I used a red thread because I want to be able to see the stitching on both sides. This also gives you an opportunity that you can write on either side so you can have the machine embroider for it or you could have people actually sign this. And because this has been permanently glued together, it will not fray and unravel, so you're able to put a little hole in here. Now you could put a buttonhole in there or you could do a round hole so that you are able to attach it to the quilt. So after the entire quilt has been quilted, you can tack on ribbon or even a little button here, and you'll be able to put the nametag through the ribbon. Tie a bow and you have a name tag on each gift. Now you can make this pattern in any fabric at all so it doesn't have to be for Christmas. You could do it for a baby shower and you can hand out these tags to everybody that comes in and they can personally sign it so that it can go on the gift afterwards. Anniversaries, birthdays, and then when you do need to wash the quilt you can take them off, wash the quilt, and put them back on. So from December's block of the month to a gift quilt, the occasion is all up to you. Thank you for joining me today on SewVeryEasy. Feel free to subscribe and, as always, come on back. Let's see what we're sewing next time
in the sewing room. Bye for now!
