Episode 38: Cutting Fabrics and Beginner Quilt Blocks

[Music] hello welcome to the a quilting life podcast this episode is airing on monday september 27th 2021 i'm sheri mcconnell from a quilting life and i'm chelsea stratton from chelsea stratton designs and we are so happy to be with you today it's been a little while since we've taped yes it really has because we kind of filmed a couple together previously and so yeah i kind of gotta get back into the groove of it all i'm feeling like exactly i feel like we taped some interview episodes ahead of time in the summer and yeah so and it actually worked out really well because it allowed you to get through the starting of school with your kids yeah it was so nice having the tape yeah yeah it was really really nice so anyway but we are back here today and excited to be with you um so what wow do we start because we both have some new finds do we start with those or the quilts yeah let's start with the quilt let's do the quilts okay uh so on the wall today we have promenade and that is a fun bigger block quilt uh fat quarter friendly and i made this using our balboa collection and i kind of when i pulled it out today i was kind of just reminiscing because this seashore drive was really inspired by balboa and i'm like oh this is so this is so fun to kind of bring these quilts out again so bigger block quilt uh fat quarter friendly and on the table today we have horizon and you may have seen this one before it is jelly roll and honey bun friendly so i actually shared this on social media this past week for national so jelly roll day yeah and the quilting is just gorgeous on both of these uh but i really for a long time wanted to mix a jelly roll and a honey bun together and it's just kind of a cool take on it and the quilt is on point but it's really not that challenging to make so yeah this was your first on-point quilt too wasn't it yes my very first and i'm proud of myself that i like went for it yeah you know beautiful tried a new technique and look we have some points that are together yeah i know i know it was good for me to step outside of the uh the comfort of my box so yeah so those are the quilts and we'll have those linked and so yeah let's go on to new finds because i actually have one yes yeah okay you do you want to go first and my oh you have an old favorite i've mentioned before but oh okay so i actually messaged billy and i'm like is this silly to share this but i think it's the coolest find ever because it uh has already proven useful to me i'm gonna leave one with you mom oh awesome so it's a new series of pens by sharpie uh called the s gel pens so they they're like a gel uh but and they have different point like fine like widths of them so i actually got the 0.7 they have a one uh and they they actually have a thinner one as well kate the reason i'm sharing this is i get a lot of design questions about how i design and when i write yes when i'm oh it's no smear too so if you're left-handed a lot of people um oh wow it's so smooth yeah it's really smooth uh so when i'm designing a fabric line i start by by hand drawing i mean 90 of the designs all the florals all that i very rarely do everything just in illustrator well there there can kind of be an issue when you're drawing i have to be careful about the type of paper i'm using and the type of pen or marker i'm using because when i scan my images into illustrator illustrator catches everything so say i'm using a regular sharpie if you were to zoom in uh really really close it catches all of that all of the bleed from the marker that you don't see when you're drawing and i need a and sometimes if you don't connect lines there's space and i'm not able to fill in that space because of that so i have found i have to use kind of like for me it's easier to use a specific paper that doesn't have texture to it and uh i need a good pen or marker that is going to connect lines and just be really smooth so that there's no discrepancies when i scan those images into illustrator and early on it was really frustrating for me because i would scan the images into illustrator and i'm like ah it's going to be kind of hard to work with these because you know lines didn't connect or the type of pen i used didn't show up very well or just didn't wasn't as smooth and so it just makes it easier so that was really long and drawn out but i've been really happy with these and i think that they have been awesome for the design aspect but also every other aspect because i use them for everything now yeah so i feel like it i just when i scribbled my name and it just was so smooth i'm excited to try this out with my planner yeah yeah yeah no yeah no smear which makes it really nice so uh yeah and not expensive which is great so i bought a couple packs and okay i'm guessing they'll last me a while yeah we will link to this yeah uh okay so mine it's an actually an old favorite because we shared it in august but the wild grain subscription bread boxes are so amazing uh we just got our september box and we've already had the rosemary garlic sourdough bread so amazing and we sampled some of the pumpkin cinnamon rolls which we did save some for chelsea and billy so it's just so nice to have such good bread in the freezer that we can you know most of them bake within under 30 minutes and uh so wildgrain gave us another code for our listeners and viewers and we'll have that available in the description awesome i think we popped up a picture of this september box here so yeah i'm like dreaming of those cinnamon rolls so good it's that time of year guys yeah and everything tastes better because the cooler weather is coming yeah they they do seasonal things in these boxes yeah it was fun to open it up and see since it's fall now wow what the fall uh offering was going to be yeah okay and then also one more thing before we get started i just wanted to mention the stitch pink sew along it's been slightly delayed because of sincerely your shipping uh it was going to start friday october 1st but now it's going to start friday october 15th and the videos are going to go a little bit quilter quicker so we will still be finished by the end of october so friday october 15th tuesday october 19th friday october 22nd tuesday tuesday october 26 and friday october 29th for the finishing video and those videos are all filmed we're super excited for you to watch the tutorials and also there's now a wall hanging version available for the the quilt that yeah so that came along with the filming and so we have all those details for you and we're excited for for that to begin and it can people it still by the pattern yes to do the quilt along but i mean the the fabric sort of yeah yeah you need the pattern that's available everywhere now and pattern uh kit there's kits i think you can still sign up on that quarter shop we can put a link for that i believe they still have kits available and you can also check with your local quilt shop if if they have it yeah i've seen some shops online on instagram say that they also have kits okay uh available yeah so so we're super excited about that and that's just around the corner yeah i know i'm excited to like see them posted just because i know you guys worked so hard on these and yeah uh it's just gonna be really cool for people to have those videos they're really helpful i feel like right and with that being said we will have probably some extra content here in october on the youtube channel because of squeezing that in along with all of our regular content so uh billy's got all that all the stitch pink is done so that's kind of nice to have all that work behind us yeah and then i you know i forgot to put something on you guys outline that we talked about yesterday okay that um to share was the quilt from a listener the picture so i have it here on my computer i can read the email if you'd like me to okay yeah do you wanna i got this wonderful email from someone who was inspired by our january goals podcast oh cool and she sent a picture of a quilt she did um using my labor of love quilt book and yeah billy can you read that email yeah and i'll have the pictures popped up while uh while we do that so it says hi sure i wanted to share my latest quilt top started on january 25th and finished on september 9th when you did your goal setting podcast with chelsea i set some goals for myself one of which was to design and make a meditation quilt i fell in love with the balboa collection and started with six fat quarters from a sew sampler box and added a layer cake and a scrap bag from your shop this has been a fun project especially figuring out the math you can see i was inspired by your book labor of loved and labor of love and use the family tree block as my centerpiece and your grandmother's flower garden blocks as the top and bought as top and bottom rows this is a special quilt for my four-year-old granddaughter's room at my house she hugged it when she saw it my next challenge is to find a long arm quilter who does custom quilting i usually hand quilt my projects but this is so big compared to my usually my usual lap quilts oh my god and wait till you see the picture it is beautiful yeah i guess i should there's something but i'll read the last sentence too she's she also said you and chelsea have been a bright spot during the pandemic uh thank you for sharing your talent oh my goodness thank you isn't that so nice that's so nice it was so fun to find that in my inbox and of course i messaged her back and asked her if it would be okay if we shared and she said yes so and that was from monique i should mention also so so thank you monique yeah i can't wait to see that's so sweet yeah it's really beautiful and and how fitting that you brought two balboa quilts today too so the pictures will definitely match what you see here yeah i'm liking it oh my goodness awesome that's so sweet okay well billy set up our outline for us today based on topics that he found in the comments from previous videos and so we have two topics we're going to talk a little bit about cutting fabric and then we're also going to talk about quilt blocks so i'm excited about that one really excited yeah so the first one uh i i saw different people suggested talking about cutting fabric and once again uh no surprise i'm not i don't really know anything about that so i just i put i guess you know if you guys could talk about some just some general fabric cutting tips techniques tools that that you use i i if i recall from the comments people were just basically asking it seemed pretty general the things that you know how can i cut it straighter or just i guess general tips that you guys use that you don't waste fabric when you cut yeah yeah this is a great topic yeah i think it's a great topic uh i even have a funny story well yeah let me tell something really quick and then you go okay is that okay because it's so funny that this topic when my grandmother started working with me on quilting this is truly one of the first one of my strong memories is her telling me you know measure twice cut once and you know not a lot of really specific things stick out in my mind from working on that first quilt with my grandmother but that is one of them yeah so yeah yeah that's like yeah you hear that a lot in the holding world it's like just measure twice cut once you know it'll really save you and even experienced quilters will even admit man i didn't i didn't measure twice that time you know and i think when you're cutting you're just mentally you're sometimes you're going so quick right uh but yeah just sometimes even i i'll sit there and i'm like i hope i'm on the right number right because you know you're doing the math in your head and uh but yeah measure twice cut once i was gonna bring up that tip but i feel like everyone knows it but it's so important oh was that your same story no no no okay that's not the same story okay i but i do think that that's very important no i just have a quick story to share uh when we started designing fabric uh bright sun was our very first collection and i remember the fabric showing up and we had minimal the most minimal time to make the quilts get them quilted and go to quilt market and i remember uh i wasn't designing quilts at the time i had just been designing fabric and so i said well let me come over to the house and i'll help you fold and all this stuff and i uh even took over some cutting but what's so funny and ironing in ironing but what's so funny is my mom was like well well bill you know my dad uh uh he can help i have never in my life there there you know i never thought there was a wrong way to cut fabric but if you have watched my father cut fabric with a rotary cutter i have never had more stress and anxiety in my life and you know what i'm talking about and it was almost like it was almost like he was like trying to cut through the cutting mat and uh i think he ruined my hair he ruined your cutting mat and we finally were like stop please stop and uh so there is definitely a nice little flow to cutting fabrics you know you're not just like jamming your rotary cutter into the cutting mat and so you're saying strength doesn't no you play a part in cutting fabric so yeah we don't need the hulk we you know you don't need to work out in order to or at least hit the weights right totally it's funny that you said i could i can pitch your dad cutting through yeah you know all right i'm just gonna power through this yeah it really was like the funniest thing and so i i actually think of that story a lot so when i saw the topic i'm like oh i gotta share this story about dad but no i think uh just general as far as general fabric cutting tips yeah you don't need to just go all brute strength with it but i think measure twice cut once is the biggest thing uh for that but the next one is essential fabric cutting techniques which they go hand in hand and that's what i was going to say like you know you want to make sure you're lined up you've already measured twice and you want to have a firm grip on that ruler so it doesn't slide i'm sure they have better i probably have an old one but that grip better to your cutting mat yeah i don't know what brand you have the creative grids have those like rough patches underneath that grip the fabric which i would recommend you know so it doesn't because you will those the one i have kind of slides a bit so i have to be a little bit more careful actually i'm gonna go i'm gonna go upgrade today i might have some stick on things you can put on the bottom of your ruler if you want they make those too if your ruler does slide yeah it's a sticker that has a little grip under it and you can so maybe i think i have some you can just take there you go guys mom can link those but yeah i might need to try that out but i still uh i know a lot of seasoned quilters that have still cut themselves really really badly because if you're not paying attention and really holding down that ruler and paying attention i mean that i think is the most important tip yeah i'd say be really careful uh my daughter wants you know still is like i want to get into more sewing and i'm like the the cutting not nope not yet like i can do all that for you uh it's scary you know i know a lot of people that wear those gloves i don't just because i feel like i'm doing everything so fast i don't want to have to like take the glove off one minute and put it on the next and yeah uh i know some people that have had some bad injuries and they they wear those gloves forever afterwards yeah they also have those handles that that can they have kind of like suction cups and they can stick onto your ruler and that elevates your hand so that maybe if your if your other hand with the cutter goes a little crazy your hand is up and not down on the ruler where it could but i also you know i'm kind of like bending my fingers in that's what i do i do that sometimes too so that if if i were to have a problem maybe i would just nick yeah my knuckle and not cut my finger yeah it's the home it's the home economics food rule when you're in cooking class yeah how you get hey you know when you're cutting an onion like you kind of you know curl your fingers up right yeah i do that too and just funny yeah just don't get going too fast for safety reasons i did want to back up just a minute too and men can cut fabric i i didn't want you to make it sound like me just you know my husband can't but then you can cut fabric but i did have a student once and i actually had her several in several different classes for um at a retreat that i used to teach at frequently in bryce canyon and she i believe had had a stroke or several strokes but she was still able to sew but not cut but every time she came to one of my classes her husband had cut all of her fabric and it was so sweet oh my goodness he did a great job and her fabric was very accurately cut and how sweet he would cut it and label it and send it in a box and she was able to come to the retreat and so you know she could sew anything she just couldn't do the cutting because of her physical limitations oh my goodness yes isn't that the sweetest so yeah there are men out there yeah and i've taught men before too and i know we have some male listeners because they've emailed so i was just talking about my dad you guys yes so oh goodness yeah uh more general um also pressing your fabric before you cut it yeah if it's not if it has wrinkles in it you can measure and cut as accurately as you want and those wrinkles might put a twist in it yeah just make sure it's pressed for sure and especially when you're opening up a fat quarter bundle yes uh you have you will see the ridges and that and you i know sometimes it's so tempting to be like yeah i'll just cut it it'll be fine it will be off that is like that ridge is a lot of excess fabric actually yeah uh you have to iron yeah beforehand fat eighth bundles fat quarter you just have to press them before you start that's why i love layer cakes exactly layer cakes are usually good to go yeah and jelly rolls are usually good to go charm packs but those larger pieces need to be pressed uh one more thing i was going to mention your the lines on your ruler are generally more accurate than the lines on cutting mats there are a lot of different brands of cutting mats out there and some of them are not that accurate that being said i feel like my alpha maths are fairly accurate fairly yeah i would say almost pretty accurate even but it's a good rule of thumb to rely on your ruler more than your mat yeah so you told me that like oh man maybe sometime within the last year like a year ago and i was like wait what and i had never like heard that before i just was like yeah cutting mat but no it's important to uh not just rely on right just the mat and then also have a sharp rotary blade those dull blades can really mess yeah cutting i was actually that was going to be my next thing okay is some people had posed the question they said well you know like should i get a new mat and i'm like honestly a lot of times it's your blade right and a dull blade is actually going to ruin your mat more than you know a sharper blade and i just love putting a new blade in i love it so much uh but that's gonna do a lot more for you so always have you know a nice new blade uh don't just keep using a dull blade you could actually injure yourself probably more with a dull blade right like yeah uh so yeah that was going to be my other big one yeah and i did a sharp blade yeah i do love the the olfa um they have two different kinds of blades and i like the ones that are like it's just leaving my mind right now what it's called but i think it's endure the alpha endurance it's a sharper blade and i believe they do last longer so we'll go ahead and link those whoa okay then so i think you're right because i think one of the videos we did with the sampler boxes they included one yeah you mentioned that i need to go buy some yeah so i'll be using the endurance they're a little pricier i i can't remember what they are expensive yeah yeah and i can't remember how much longer they're supposed to last but that they advertise but i feel like it's true that they really do last significantly but it's worth it like you need a sharp blade it makes such a difference even and you can feel it when you're cutting right you're like oh it's like butter it's so much better like yeah yeah and then i did have a couple of things just i wanted to mention really quickly i really like the stripology rulers for cutting multiple strips yes very accurate there's several different sizes there's a a mini for when you're cutting small pieces and there are two or three different larger sizes i feel like that's a really accurate way to cut strips yeah so i think we've even filmed a video on that billy cutting a strip cutting yeah yeah or as well cutting technique video so yeah yeah those are great and then i also love if you're doing curved piecing i love the circle savvy ruler that helps you really accurately cut curved pieces for drunkard's paths yeah that would scare me when you're you know cutting curves like oh yeah so that's a that's a great uh a great method yeah i also want to say one more thing that i feel is just like everyone should know this but i feel like it does need to be repeated and also young moms who are quilting i want to speak to uh since we're talking about blades anyways close it when you're done using it every single time and sometimes i'm like i'm like well i didn't really need to close it but it's just a habit now and my kids are getting older and i still keep my i have a sewed uh bag you made me that i keep like those type of notions in and i still put it up on a shelf because it still scares me that like one of my kids could get a hold of it and uh it's a dangerous tool so uh yeah and and my kids know not to touch it but i still am kind of like nope i'm still gonna put it away so i know i put it away yeah no and it's tempting when you're sewing you're just by yourself you're in your sewing room you think oh i'm just gonna leave it open it's just me here but one time i did that and i just like inadvertently touched my hand and it was a new blade and i got a pretty i remember that it was worse than a paper cut yeah you know and if i had just shut that blade so i am very very careful now yeah even if it's just me that blade is getting shut for sure that's how i feel and the same thing i move the rotary cutters uh i have a a separate table in my sewing room and it has a notion holder back at the back towards the window and i keep the rotary cutters over there in case the ground kids and scissors and everything you keep back there yeah so hopefully make it a little more safe yeah they'd have to really work to get to it so like some of them are they could figure it out but yeah you know we don't i'm always in there if they're in that room yeah so did we leave anything i think that's pretty i think that covered that topic yeah okay i'm really excited about this next topic yeah this is a good topic and you know you guys so th this topic we we're going to have my mom and sister rank quilt blocks from like most beginner friendly to into advanced blocks they've before you guys have talked about your favorite ones even though i don't think either of you settled on one you kept saying like and this one and this one and this one right yeah so you guys have sort of tried to do that but this one some people were asking more specifically about quilt blocks and which ones are best to learn with and which you know which one should you put off until later until you you feel more confident in your in your sewing so i figured you know you guys could sort of start at the top and and rank them and maybe your rankings will be some of them will be the same but i'm guessing some might be different too so you just want to bounce back and forth and then when when you come across a block you want to talk about you know share why it's why it's more beginner friendly yeah yeah i was thinking maybe chelsea could start with her number one and then maybe that's number one on my list also yeah and if not i can say where it's at on my list or yeah does that sound good because i was like okay okay you don't want us to you know yeah uh i was gonna say my first one is simple squares and rectangles so a patchwork quilt right i think for a beginner that is the best way to go you're not doing any technique that is right like yeah so that's going to be my first one uh yeah and i actually think everyone should start there yeah i really do and i wanted to share a quick story when i decided to really start quilting i had already made a patchwork baby quilt and i've shared the story before i didn't love a second of it and mom was like you're just gonna make one quilt and if you don't like making it then you never have to quilt again and this was like when i was 11 years old but i will say this when i started to get into quilting and seeing everyone's quilts i was like i want to do something you know and i started with a harder for me you know harder a more complex technique and it was really hard on me and i kind of wish i would have just started out doing hey i'm going to make a simple patchwork quilt that's going to be awesome so that's very simple piecing make sure you have a good quarter inch seam and you're good to go so yeah i didn't even put that on my list i didn't even think about that but you're absolutely right beginner the very basic building block is just simple patchwork with either squares or rectangles yeah yeah uh so my first one then which really i think follows right after that is a four patch so yeah you know just put sewing four different fabrics together into a square and making multiples of those and sewing them together and yeah for tips for that i had i really like flipping the centers of four patches uh we filmed a video on this i feel like maybe or we showed it on oh maybe we oh we showed it on one of the stitch pink videos so you'll have to look for that oh okay that's coming soon yeah coming soon there are some four patches that you do for that quilt and i did kind of show that technique in there where you flip those seams so that they're super flat yeah so yeah okay would you say though that like nine patch goes along with that that that was my very next one oh that was your very next one okay because yeah you're just upping and adding squares okay okay i was just thinking about that i'm like i didn't even i didn't even think to write a nine patch down and now i'm like oh okay so i have so yeah so i guess where we're at now yeah simple patchwork then four patch nine patch yes yeah and you just keep upping that until yeah right okay so do you want to go yeah because you're definitely doing more piecing and more ironing with the nine patch right so yeah yeah and different techniques can really make sure you know make that when your your points are going together right okay so then i feel like the next step and i'm sure this is your next one too is i feel like the very first technique you should learn after that is a half square triangle yes uh so and i was just gonna say like proper trimming is my biggest tip for that and there's so many options now like before i literally would like so like i used to draw i'm gonna start with this i used to draw all my lines for half square triangles now i don't because i have diagonal seam tape uh but then also like a good you know block lock ruler is going to help you have a perfect half square triangle right uh so that's i feel like your next yeah uh big technique wouldn't you say yeah and um there's triangle paper also for a square triangle yes that's a great tip yeah triangle paper is so nice so yeah and so what i did i didn't put half square triangle but my my next block was churn dash because it has the half square triangles in the four corners so we're kind of on the same page kind of on the same page yeah uh okay so next i'm gonna say after you've mastered straight lines sewing four patches nine patches half square triangles probably the flying geese block yeah is probably the next i didn't even put that one down i was yeah but that's perfect because that goes into my next one yeah and there are block lock rulers i they are pricey but if you're making tiny flying geese they are so worth it i feel like for larger flying geese maybe not as necessary yeah but for those if you're doing a one by two or a one and a half by three those little block lock rulers really are yeah just helpful i'm actually going to counter you on that oh really b only because i had messaged mom and i was like hey do you have a this size block lock ruler do you remember this from my afterglow quilt and you're like i don't even think they make that size and i looked it up and they did oh the reason i used a block lock on the afterglow is it was like a ton of flying geese and because the way the quilt is made with it i needed to ensure they were perfect or else the quilt would look it would be noticeable yeah and it's a larger size it's a larger size and i just felt like it really did help with the larger but only because i did so many right if i didn't have as many right i wouldn't have used the block lock probably yeah so just that little tidbit but yeah and if you don't have a if you're not using a block lock and you're making a flying geese unit i would really suggest drawing the lines or using the diagonal seam tape yes to help with your accuracy for sure on that definitely so the next uh step that makes sense is a sawtooth star going off of mom's flying geese because i mean yeah essentially you could either make use half square triangles or right but it to me it's simpler to just do uh uh the flying geese method for your sawtooth star right and so that you're just adding you know squares with your flying geese to you know piece together this block and so you're using simple patchwork and technique to make a star block which is kind of the next step and those are kind of addicting to make just because they're so much fun and there's way like there's so many variations you can do for a sawtooth star yeah so i'd stay say still simple be a super beginner but uh still adding something different right yeah i had sawtooth yep i had it next too and the same thing you can use flying geese units or if you have a lot of extra half square triangles laying around you can use those for the star points but yeah that that's my next one and i actually did a pattern my garden stars sampler quilt actually starts out with this sawtooth star and there are six different star blocks in that pattern and they each get a little more difficult oh and we should totally be bringing two of us up today yeah so this is great that's a great technique once you've mastered half square triangles and patchwork that pattern is really great for beginners to just kind of work through more techniques and make those different star blocks yeah i wanted to mention that okay so are you next i think i'm next yeah i actually have log cabin next that was mine next really yeah okay yeah and i feel like for me with log cat with larger pieces with my log cabins i don't use any special tools but again with the smaller ones i love the creative grids yes log cabin trim tools they have them all the way down to four inch six inch aiden you know but those are great rulers for making sure that your log cabin block comes out just the right size yeah yeah i was going to say that's kind of like a different i mean yeah you're piecing totally different than you are anything else with a log cabin it's one of my very favorite blocks to make i had one more tip on that one that i've talked about before when you are ironing do not push and warp the log cabin because on that block it is so noticeable like uh so yeah be careful when doing that right one of my favorite blocks to make i really love that one yeah and i also feel like you kind of need to keep an eye on the measurement as you oh yeah at each layer because if you're just a little bit off at the beginning you're going to be a lot off at the end of the block exactly totally yeah for sure and i've done that before so yeah in fact i was just making uh let's see when is this airing the 27th okay so in a few days when my october block of the month pattern is available she's giving you guys a hint i'm giving you a hint it is a log cabin variation and i made the 12 inch blocks for my sample when i filmed the vid for the video uh i didn't use any special tool but when i did the six inch size i actually did use a log cabin trim tool just to make sure it was perfect yeah yeah and there's something different about this log cabin though so you have to wait see what it is so okay so what do you think is next uh okay so for me i'm going back to that first story i shared and i'm going to share the block that i started with quilting and i would say uh ohio star is next that's what i have we vibing or what that's what i have okay so the reason i bring up the ohio star is you're going one step further than the half square triangle so uh you're making you're using a technique by uh making your half square triangles and then you're repeating that process right to get uh the hourglass i guess you would call it little block to then complete your ohio star right so uh that is the very first block i ever made and it was your pattern um oh shine i think it was shine and i would call you all the time and my points were off but you want to know what it just pro i wasn't trimming properly i didn't have a perfect quarter inch seam it was like to me i thought it was a nightmare but i did it uh i think that's next yeah so this is like six or seven down the list it sounds like right yeah yeah so why was this your first block that you did if we're ranking them from like beginner friend like was it too advanced for you was it i think it was okay i think it was i think i just really wanted if i in my head if i was gonna start quilting i wanted to just go for something uh more difficult which wasn't the right move at all and mom had told me that she's like why don't you start off with and she gifted me a pattern it used many charm squares uh it's like your country something oh uh very old pattern okay you gave me a few patterns that were beginner okay and i said i'm gonna take the shine one too and i made the shine and it was just really difficult but i finished the quilt like is this block would you guys consider it intermediate or i think it's still beginner friendly or not confident beginner yeah big confident beginner yeah intermediate yeah and most of the blocks i feel like fall in line with that anyways like uh actually uh i'll talk about it later so ohio star is the next one and i wrote ohio star and then i added in later quarter square triangle because that's the technique yeah yeah to make that block and we actually have a video on how to make a quarter square triangle block it's an older video oh cool so we do we can link that too if anybody needs help with that that's cool okay so next is it my turn though yes okay so next i had uh english paper piecing i felt because i love grandmother's flower garden blocks and yeah so i just kind of put that in next because i mean it is a hand sewing technique so it doesn't really fall in this uh you know all these other blocks are machine pieced although you could hand piece them as well but yeah i put that one next yeah that was actually uh well i didn't write it down i wanted to okay uh i do want to go back just one more step though to intermediate because i wrote uh my safe haven quilt uh is i feel like an intermediate uh i don't even know what you would call that block does it have the easy corner triangles because i i just realized we kind of missed that oh we kind of missed that too that should i'll just show you later if anyone knows uh my safe haven quilt that's an intermediate quilt and it's the first one i've really had to tell people hey this is an intermediate quilt when you're piecing it you can pop up a piece yeah i'll give billy yeah it's the way you sew it is intermediate for sure because you have to trim the block at the end to make it a square do you know what i'm going to the piecing i'm talking about and and not make sure that you don't cut off your points you need to have a perfect quarter inch around the whole block after okay so the next one i wanted to mention is sewing with triangles i feel like yes that can be a little trickier for people there are a lot of tools that have it to where you kind of blunt edge the ends of the triangle so it's easier to line them up yes when you sew them together yes so but i i feel like that's kind of more difficult than a quarter square triangle uh yeah moving uh into more intermediate pieces yeah triangles and then from triangles we're gonna follow with diamonds yeah i was gonna say diamonds uh i made a lone star quilt and it was i felt very uh more of a difficult technique for me and getting everything to line up and lose and i lost quite a few points but i'm really grateful for that actually because it was a good learning experience and i started to realize oh yeah if i just you know if i eye that point right here i know exactly where i need to put the next piece and right but yeah i mean that's yeah that's another i feel like that's definitely not beginner right for sure intermediate yeah confident intermediate sometimes so yeah no i agree with you on that uh next i had curved piecing yes okay mine kind of my next one kind of goes in line with that yeah it does it does yeah and i i mentioned this earlier but i love that circle savvy ruler i feel like with curved piecing you really want to make sure that your pieces are cut properly or it can mess up the um the way everything lines up so yeah so everyone knows my goal this year was to do curved piecing have i i think like we need a special day together for you you might have to move it to 2022. yeah yeah i'm still like well what's so funny is i was actually thinking about that yesterday i'm like man i'd really love to i just i want to do it but i just don't know what and so that kind of leads into my next uh and maybe maybe this is the same uh i feel like orange peel is like yeah uh more difficult and but i love the way they look and i just think they're so pretty uh so i don't know how do you feel do you feel like that's the exact i mean it's curved piecing obviously yeah well you can you can do them with curved piecing or you can applique them on the top of a background yes but that that that's not simple either yeah i feel like that would be more difficult for sure yeah i didn't even really put applique on my list because i feel like it's a whole nother genre yeah yeah of sewing but yeah if you're gonna do that start out with simple curves and the more points i feel like in the applique piece the more difficult it takes a little bit more time and practice to get those points down but if you're if you're gonna do some applique simple curves you can learn pickup pretty quickly yeah yeah for sure so that's really all i have on my list i'm here really okay yeah yeah you guys are pretty similar pretty yeah pretty similar and what i'll do now that i can look at both of your what you guys wrote down i'll sort of rank them throughout the video if you're watching the video and then maybe we can just list them out on the show notes for for the podcast as well if people wanna if you're like a new quilter and don't know where to start or which block maybe this list will help some people know where to start huh yeah and i also thought we could also put on the show notes and in the description below maybe we could each come up with a list of our three most beginner friendly patterns yeah and link those so if you're looking for a beginner friendly pattern we could each list three yeah does that sound good yeah that sounds good okay all right okay so our billy do we have time for yeah a review or two yeah i definitely wanted to read a couple um because it's been a while because uh you know we've been doing more interviews and everything right and so um i'll yeah i'll read a couple here that i saw it just came back in june okay uh all right so one it says i look forward to this podcast more than any other during the month very good information and worth listening to multiple times feels like i'm hanging out with friends when you all upload and i love it the addition of billy makes it even homier so thank you yeah that was nice thank you thank you so much and then this one this this is this is pretty crazy to read uh i just subscribed to a quilting life podcast and i ran through a whole year of episodes in three days wow so i was like wow uh i'm extremely new to quilting and sharing chelsea make me less hesitant about everything i live in a rural farming community the closest quilt shop is 40 miles away i've not found them to be helpful in answering my newbie questions so this podcast is exactly what i need the question and answers uh covers all the topics i have questions about but most of all i've learned to stop taking everything so seriously and just enjoy the process thank you oh i love that because that's what it's all about what it's all about i love that enjoying the journey and yeah not being hard at yourself as you learn this new yeah skill and mistakes are just learning experiences yes that's you're supposed to i love experiences yeah and she's she somehow went you know listened to us for three days straight yeah it's a lot of that's a lot of us i almost feel like yeah i might need to apologize for that uh but yeah those are great yeah and i also totally completely get you know i feel like there are so many people in our country that do live in rural areas where they don't have access and you know we lived in las vegas for a long time but when we moved to where we live now that really was kind of when i turned to the internet yeah for quilting myself because of just being so far away from from quilt shops and for sure other creatives and uh you know at the time my grandmother i could always call her and ask her any questions but she was an hour away so yeah we're just really blessed to have all this online yeah for sure all these online resources now okay okay so our next episode is october 11th 2021. we're going to have a guest interview we're actually taping that later today yeah and uh it shall be great yes it's someone that you have requested yeah it was one of one of the top people's top requests yeah uh we have actually a couple other top request people who said yes later this fall so yeah uh we're excited about that okay so we'll see everyone on october 11th this has been a great conversation i agree thanks so much for stopping by [Music]

Channel: A Quilting Life

Views: 14,795

Rating: 4.9361024 out of 5

Keywords: A Quilting Life, A Quilting Life Podcast, Quilting, Sewing, Moda Fabrics, Sherri McConnell, Chelsi Stratton, Quilt Podcast, Quilting Tips, Quilt Pattern, Quilt Projects, Quilt Blocks, Inspiration, Creativity, Podcast, Fabric Design, Cutting Fabric, Fabric Cutting Tips, Rulers, Rotary Blades, Beginner Quilt Blocks, Intermediate Quilt Blocks, Advanced Quilt Blocks, Quilting Tools, Quilting Notions, Easy Quilt Patterns

Id: 4d8SxinQxPw

Length: 50min 51sec (3051 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 27 2021