- Hi there, it's Karen Brown
of Just Get It Done Quilts. I have a stash-buster
block today that makes up into a quilt so fast you'll be dazzled. It's fast, it's simple, and
it's fat-quarter friendly. And if you stay to the end, I'll show you where to
download the pattern. So stick with me and I'll
show you how to do it. Sometimes we just want
to make a fast quilt, either it's something
sudden like a new baby or a get-well gift or we just
want to do something easy, or we want to burn
through some of our stash. This block is going to
satisfy all those things. You can cut it this morning, you can make the top this afternoon, and you can quilt it tonight. I'd like to give a quick thank you to today's sponsor Skillshare. I've been a member for about a year. It's a great place to
dabble in new skills. So let's get going. So I want you to go to your stash, and I want you to find eight fat quarters. I want you to find them
in a variety of saturation and a variety of value. You might've bought a collection, just pull eight or they
can be totally random from your stash. The first thing you want to do
is arrange your fat quarters by value and here are my eight. The line is Little Genius
by Quilts for Kids. I only had seven fat
quarters in this collection, so I threw in two fat eighths in solids. So line them up, take a
black and white photo, rearrange them till you
have four high-value and four low-value fabrics. Then give each fat quarter a good press. Fat quarters have usually been in storage, and they have some really
sharp creases in them, we need to flatten them out. The last thing we need to
check before we start cutting is for directional fabrics. This fabric is directional
along the length of fabric, and this one is the opposite, this one's directional along
the width of the fabric. So if you can't remember the
last time you changed the blade in your rotary cutter,
today's the day to do it. You need a super-sharp blade. We're going to stack our fat
quarters on top of one another, aligning the selvages on the bottom side, and we are going to square
up the pile along the bottom. Then we're going to measure 18 inches and trim the other side. I'm pretty confident cutting four at once, sometimes I've done eight, but don't put any pressure on yourself. Do what you're comfortable with. So we're going to trim off the selvages, then measure nine inches
and cut another nine inches and cut. Then we're going to measure
up from the bottom nine inches and cut, and we won't separate the pieces until the very last. Always turn the mat or
walk around the table, so that your blade is
always going away from you which gives you the most accurate cutting and don't be ashamed to
check your measurements before you cut. Measure twice, cut once. Now we're going to stack them,
alternating the low values with the high values and
ensuring any directional fabrics are facing the right way up. Make four stacks of eight. Now we're going to make a
random cut parallel to the side from the bottom to the top. Then we're going to place the top piece from the right side on the bottom. Take the piece from the
right side and pair it with the piece from the left side and repeat with all the
other pairs in the stack. Then repeat the process
with the next stack, choosing a different random
spot parallel to the side, but repeating the process
of taking the top piece, putting it on the bottom and
then pairing the other pieces. How simple was that? Now we're going to chain pieces. Make sure you have a
sewing ledge in place. If you haven't seen how to
make one with masking tape, I'll connect you to that video up here. Don't worry about pinning. Just tuck it up against the ledge and sew. It took me just over 15 minutes to chain piece all 32 blocks. Now if you haven't seen
my video on ironing, I'm going to put a link up here. Using the finger pressing
method takes a little bit of extra time, but the
results are worth it. All these ironed blocks
nest perfectly together and make the next step so simple. Now we have a stack of 32 blocks. Make four stacks of eight blocks like you did in the first step. Have the seam that you've just
sewn go from left to right, match up the corners
so their line is square with each other as possible. Make sure all the directional fabrics are going in one direction, place your ruler randomly
perpendicular to the side, and cut. This time you're going to
take the top three layers and put them on the bottom. Then pair the right
side with the left side with right sides together. See how nicely these seams nest? Repeat with the other three stacks. This time it took me a
little over 16 minutes to piece all 32 pieces, probably
because I was just taking it a little slower just to be sure that those two little seams were nesting against each other. And time to press again. These blocks are now
eight1/2 inches square. Now if yours are a little off,
and you want to trim them down, you can do that, but this
is a fast and easy quilt, so I'm not going to fuss over that. So in an hour1/2 we have
32 blocks and better yet, this is a low-waste quilt. Look how little is left over. And these pieces that were
left over from the fat quarters I'm just going to
incorporate into the back. Now we have to lay them out. So we're laying out the blocks
in six rows of five blocks. Now I'll be honest, this is the spot where I overthink it every single time. I've got to just be calm. I've put my timer on for 30 minutes max and just lay them out,
because I could seriously be at this for two days. And once the blocks are sewn together it measures 40 1/2
inches by 48 1/2 inches. Now before we talk about
finishing the quilt, I just want to talk about
Skillshare for a moment. Skillshare is an online
community for creators with over 25,000 online classes. I've been a Skillshare
subscriber for about a year now. Personally, I use it for inspiration. Classes on creative writing. There's classes on creative lettering. How to improve your Instagram feed. How to get yourself together
for a hundred-day project. Or playing around with some macrame. Premium membership gives
you unlimited access, so you can take the classes
that you want to take. So that at the beginning of the year you might want to set some goals, these classes can help ya get there. If you're stuck in your
quilting or your job or at home, going online and taking
some of these classes can help you get over the hump. Skillshare can fuel your
curiosity, your creativeness, your career to help you keep
thriving and learning in 2019. Skillshare is super affordable
and an annual subscription is less than $10 a month. Join more than seven million creators, learning with Skillshare. And if you use the link below, you'll get a two-month free
trial, so check it out. Take it for a test drive. See if you can get as
much out of it as I do. Now I put a border on mine. I just wanted to give it
a little bit more size, so I cut five strips the width of fabric three1/2 inches wide. From the strips I made two pieces 3 1/2 inches by 48 1/2 inches wide, and I sewed them to the
sides of the quilt top. With the remaining
fabric I made two strips Three 1/2 inches by 46 1/2 inches wide and sewed them to the top and
the bottom of the quilt top. The quilt top now measures 46 1/2 inches by 54 1/2 inches wide. There is no question I
hear asked more online than "What colour of
border do you put on?" If you want to keep that balance
of colours within the quilt, choose a de-saturated colour like a grey, but in a darker value. So in my quilt I have
chosen this taupe colour which is a de-saturated red, so the darker colour gives
it a frame so your eye stays in the middle of the quilt, but the colour doesn't compete
with the colours of the quilt. It was my choice for this quilt, you can choose whatever you want. Now the quilting that I did on
this is a very fast and easy quilt pattern, and the
good thing about this is that you don't have to worry
about keeping straight lines. You don't have to stitch in the ditch. You don't have to follow a line. You don't have to worry
if they stay straight. All you do is just make a nice, big curve. Make sure you have your walking foot on. If you have the ability
to decrease the pressure on your presser foot, do so. And then you just follow
it for the next one and if it gets closer
or if it gets farther, it doesn't matter. It just adds to the swerve. I love how fast and easy this quilt was. Start to finish it took me
about six hours to complete. Now you can do this with
as many fat quarters as you want to. Four fat quarters will make
a 32-inch by 32-inch quilt. Twenty fat quarters will make
a 64-inch by 80-inch quilt. You can download the pattern on my website at Just Get It Done Quilts
under "Stash Buster Quilts." Well, I hope you've enjoyed this video. Let me know if you'd like some
more of these stash busters. Share it if you like
it, give it a thumbs-up. Don't forget to subscribe. Can you believe over 50% of the people that watch my videos have not subscribed? Anyways, take care and
I'll see ya next time.
