Gerri Robinson's Unique Technique for 6 Blocks

[Music] hi I'm Jerry Robinson with planted seed designs and I've been designing quilt pattern since 2005 and I'm currently designing fabric for Riley Blake designs over the years the one thing I kept hearing quilters say to me is Jerry I really love your designs but man they look so hard and difficult the first thing I asked them is do you know how to make a half square triangle a quick angled rectangle of flying geese a square in a square a snowball block or a most recently a triangle in a square by the time I've said my third element they're going yeah yeah I know I know how to do those well you can pick up any one of my designs and be comfortable and confident that you'll be able to finish it because those are the six does not basic elements that I use in most of my designs so what I'm what I'm here today to share with you is my method and my technique and how to make each one of those elements [Music] before I show you my techniques in making my six basic quilting elements I want to share with you a my number one tip it truly has become a game changer in my piecing and I call it marinating your fabric I know there are a lot of quilters out there who do spray starch their fabric all of it in fact what I found for me all I need to do is marinate my background fabric I call it marinate because you're about to see why there are a lot of products on the market but for me I found that the lightbody magic sizing works the best are you ready to see how this works give it a good shake and if you do decide to try this for yourself be warned by more than one can but all you do is you literally just start spraying and to end and it will get wet and the wetter the better there's no such thing as it's too wet and I do the front and I do the back what I the other thing that I do if I know that I'm gonna be doing a lot of piecing I do this step the night before so that it can hang and dry air dry overnight that's the other key that I found is that it needs to air dry now in the spring when the wind when the breeze is blowing through the window it does dry much quicker but just just to be safe I do do this the night before so that it is ready for me to iron and cut and start piecing the next morning you can see we're getting wet aren't we so as you can see you just fold it in on itself to get the backside since I missed this on the first pass we'll just go back and get that a little bit I have gotten a couple questions when I've demonstrated this when I'm out and about teaching I had one quilter asked me well it looks like with the you getting it so wet that there would be shrinkage there is there is a little bit to this day I've never stopped to see how much I've never measured before I marinated and then measured it after but I would buy a little bit extra if wherever you purchase your fabric allows you to get an extra eighth I would go an eighth or at least a fourth so as you can see it is really really wet so that's why I've coined the phrase marinating your fabric then all's I do is I hang it up and let it dry overnight and then the next morning when I wake up it's dry I wish you could see that as much as these as much as you saw me marinate it you would think that I would have cardboard fabric to work with but because it is a light body it gives it just enough to what I'm going to show you next then what you do the other tip here is you need to have a high heat high steam iron and you simply just begin to iron it out there will be there will be parts of your background fabric that have a couple stubborn creases in them and all you need to do there is take your magic sizing and just give it a quick a quick shot and then press right on over I'm not going to iron the whole thing you guys get the idea but I just wanted to let you know and share my tip on on what this process has done for my piecing I can't wait to show you I've got one more tip I want to share with you before I show you my techniques I know all my patterns say to draw a diagonal line on the on your two and a half inch square but if you choose to marinate your fabric you don't need to draw any more simply press with your hot steamy iron and it gives you an incredible sharp crease that I'll show you the benefits of this when we jump into the six techniques [Music] now that we've marinated our background fabric and pressed a nice crease in there let's go ahead and start making our half square triangle right sides together see how that crease has created a slight bulge what I do is I just put a pin in the corner and let's head over to the sewing machine the one thing I want to share with you is you can see that crease correct we're going to stitch just a skosh on the other side of the crease and I will show you real soon what that will do for your half square triangle get our threads cut so as you can see there's your crease there's your stitch you go and you press it back on itself and look at how nice and square your block is so by stitching just a scotch on the other side of the crease allows that just that little extra that you need to go up and over your threads giving you a perfectly squared two-and-a-half inch square and then as always you trim a quarter inch from your stitch like this and press it again back on itself nice and square [Music] the next quilting element I want to share with you is a quick angled rectangle you've already marinated your background fabric you've created that nice sharp crease you're going to see some similarities occur so you're going to put right sides together just like you did in the half square triangle and because of that nice sharp crease that creates a hump we're going to just pin it to give it some stability and then you're going to stitch what's that word ass coach on the other side of the crease which gives you that you press it open and once again it squares up so nicely then you would trim it a quarter inch from the stitch press it open now in some of my patterns my quick angled rectangle stops right there it's only on one end but I do have quite a few patterns where we do the same steps and the same technique on the other end in addition in a lot of my patterns we have the quick angled rectangle being pressed to the left you do the exact same thing but you then do your stitch in the opposite direction and then it presses open to the right so it gives you a single quick angled rectangle or you can have a double quick angled rectangle the next element I want to share with you is the flying geese and again we've marinated that background fabric we've given it a nice sharp crease right sides together anchor that corner with a pin head over to your machine and we're going to stitch what's that word scootch we're going to stitch just a scotch on the other side of that crease then we'll come back we're going to press it open and again when's the last time you saw your flying days where the Ling wasn't keeping on flying but anyway so there you there you have it it squares right up and just like the half square triangle and the quick angled rectangle you will trim it a quarter inch from the stitch seam and press it back open and then you just repeat that very same step on the other side giving you a nice sharp untrimmed flying geese [Music] the next technique I want to show you is the square in a square it almost feel we could cut the audio because you're about to see the same thing occurring once again if you've marinated your fabric and you can you've pressed that nice sharp crease in your background square head on over to your machine and we're stitching yep there's that word again scooch we're gonna stitch justice coach on the other side of the hard crease and what you're going to get then you're going to stitch one corner and then the opposing corner when you press them open again I truly just keep that back on there to show you how square that block stays when you marinate your fabric but truly just trim like we've done on the others trim a quarter inch from your stitch line press it back and then you're going to do the exact same thing on the opposing corners there there we're going to trim it a quarter inch from the stitch seam press it open and look at that I did not swear this block up at all that is one of the true beauties of marinating your fabric and create in which gives you that game-changing effect on your piece element the next element I want to share with you is the snowball block as you can see you're seeing quite a few similarities already with the square in the square and they really are identical with the exception of your starting block is bigger but the steps that you take are identical once again marinating your fabric background fabric creating that sharp crease anchoring it taking it to the Machine stitching there's that where it again it's going on the on the crease and here we go again I share this for demonstration purposes only to show you once again we've stitched it I've pressed it back and it squares right up with the corner I did trim like you should a quarter inch it from the stitch line pressed it back and look at that and once again no swearing of your block needed the last quilting element I want to share with you is the triangle in a square I'm very partial to this one because Riley Blake has produced my own branded triangle in a square template I haven't used this element in a lot of my designs until recently and it's an element that I have truly fallen in love with and I want to and I want to show you how simple it really is using the background square we're going to replicate this this block the triangle and a square your side pieces are your rectangle you cut your strip the width of your finish size so this will finish at 4 inches square so you would cut your strip 4 and a half inches times lengths of fabric when you're cutting your side triangles you put your right right sides together if you're working with a solid there is no right or wrong side but you might want to get in the habit of just always putting your fabrics right sides together when you're cutting your side triangles you cut up the side there's a there's a little notch at the top you make sure you grab that and that creates that little notch right there then you rotate your ruler your template acrylic template notch it right there and then head on down for the center triangle same thing your Square will finish at 4 inches so you will cut your strip at 4 and a half inches you take the center triangle and you line up the four-and-a-half inch line at the bottom of your strip and you cut up one side and down the other then you rotate your acrylic ruler again lining up the four and a half inch mark with the top of your fabric and you trim down the other side when using acrylic templates I like the smaller rotary cutter this is a 45 millimeter it just makes it with the smaller blade it makes it easier to glide up and down the side of the acrylic so you have your Center triangle you have your two rectangles and what you do this is where that notch comes in handy you line up the notch at the tip and then you would sew a quarter inch from the end down to the tip then you trim a quarter inch from your seam and you press it open and you do the exact same thing on the other side you line it up you put right sides together you match up the notch so it squares up at the bottom make sure you're aligned at the top put it in your machine and stitch a quarter inch from the edge and then when you press it open you have a nice squared triangle in a square now that I've shared my tips and you've seen my technique in making my six basic quilting elements I hope the next time that you're visiting your local quilt store and you see one of my designs any fear that you've had in the past has been dispelled and you'll buy it give it a try I would love to hear what you think please drop me a line you can find me at planted seed designs [Music]

Channel: Riley Blake Designs

Views: 133,525

Rating: 4.8156314 out of 5

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Id: zUik9xwM5CY

Length: 19min 21sec (1161 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 22 2020