Welcome to SewVeryEasy, my name is Laura. And today I'm going to be making a quilt where I get to use the collection of vintage fabrics that I have. It's going to be a lot of fun to make and because it's vintage-looking, well, I'm going to be using my vintage Featherweight machine. But I do like to have sharp scissors so I'm going to be using a vintage-𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 pair of scissors. It's going to be a very easy pattern: Two main pieces and there's a free pattern download. I do hope you join me. So I have a nice assortment of this fabric from Marcus fabrics. It's the Aunt Grace line and there's a lot of different fabrics that make that 1920s look. I've also had a nice soft white and this white is actually called Marshmallow. It's not crisp white; it has a little bit of a soft, soft beige to it. And it goes great with all of the colors. So I've been collecting the fabric to make this particular pattern. What I like about it is it's a very simple pattern. It has two very simple blocks, but it's the layout and the little red points that really makes it unique. The bonus is all of the squares in this quilt start with 2½", which means I can use fat quarters or jelly rolls or I can actually use yardage. One of the blocks is a nine-patch, and it's supposed to have all different fabrics. In the directions they say just to cut the 2½" squares and then just sew them together randomly. I want to speed that up a little, so I'm going to strip- piece. So I'm going to cut all of my fabric into 2½" strips. Then I'm going to sew those strips together, but I'm going to sew them together randomly. And that's going to be the hardest part of the quilt because I have to force myself not to try to match up the fabrics, because I want it that scrappy, random look. And the easiest way to get it scrappy is once you've cut all of your long strips, just mix them all up, and then when you get to the machine you're going to be able to just randomly pull two. And then when you have your two strips done, you're going to grab and pull a third. So you're going to start with a strip with three pieces in it, and each of these started off at 2½". Once you have all of the strips sewn together, you need to put them in piles because you're going to need one of the three going in the center, and then two for the outside. And the seams need to be pressed so that they can nestle together. When I'm done sewing all of the strips together, before I press it I'm going to divide my pile into three, because I'm going to need a center piece and two outside pieces. Once I've divided up into three you can take your two outside and put them together, so you're going to have twice as many as that center. Then I'm going to take them to the iron and press it. The center piece I'm going to press so that the seams are coming inside. For the two outside, I'm going to press all of the seams going out. And that way those blocks are going to match together in the back. And I'm going to cut this strip into 2½" pieces along this way. When I have all the center ones cut, I'm going to keep them in a nice pile and put them right at my sewing machine. I'm going to take all the strips with the scenes that are going out and I'm going to also cut those into 2½" segments. But the ones that are going to go on the outside, I want to mix them up because I want none of them to look the same. So I'm going to mix them up just like I did those big strips. I'm just going to take them and mix them up in a big pile. Pick up one of these and then just grab randomly one from the pile, match them up and stitch them together. When I have the two done, I'm going to be able to take the two put together and randomly grab again and stitch on the other side. And by doing that I'm going to have the one going into the inside and the two going to the outside. And I'm going to take those center seams and I'm going to press them to the center. The next is going to be a snowball block in that set block that's in that center with that white piece. You're going to need forty-two squares at 6½". Take four out and put them aside; that is going to be four corner squares. Take eighteen more out, and these are going to be the side snowballs. You have your corner snowballs and the side snowballs. And the reason I fold them out is because I want to make sure that each one of them have at least one red corner, and the four corners are going to have two red squares. The rest of the snowballs are randomly pieced. My center snowballs that are random, I'm going to need 2½" squares to go along with that 6½" square. But I'm going to do them second. I want to work on my four corners and all those edge blocks. The pattern says to use a red solid but I'm just going to use some dark reds out of the collection that I've already done. For the four corners, I'm going to need two corners that are red and then the other two can be random. But I'm going to do all of my reds first, and then I can just take them and do them all at the same time as I did the centers. I'm going to do the snowball block a little bit different than the way the pattern says. The pattern tells you to take your 2½" square and draw a line from corner to corner. Then you place it on the corner and then you're going to stitch right down that center line Once that seam has been stitched ,you're going to trim off a quarter inch from that stitching line. Use a ruler and trim off a quarter inch. You're going to discard this piece, and then when that's pressed open it's going to replace the piece that you cut off. So you don't change the size of the square. You're just adding these corners. But I want to speed up the sewing. I don't want to draw those lines, because it's a lot of lines to draw. So I'm going to place my 2½" square onto the corner. Now I know I'm going to have to stitch from that corner to the corner and trim off that seam allowance, but I'm going to trim off the seam allowance first. So I'm going to use a quarter-inch mark on the ruler and I'm going to put that quarter-inch line from corner to corner. And I'm going to cut that piece off first, then I can discard it. Now before I lift it.,I'm going to put that pin in now. I'm still going to be able to stitch from that corner to corner because I'm going to be using the edge of my presser foot, which is the quarter inch. So that quarter-inch guide is going to go right along that edge, just like any regular seam. So the end results are the same; I've just done it reversed. This one I've trimmed off last; this one I've trimmed off first. And that has avoided me drawing that line. My edge is already cut off, and when I press that back I'm going to have the same results as the other corner. And for the four corners I'm going to need four blocks that have the two reds in the corner. And I'm going to take the eighteen blocks that are going to have one red point, and I'm going to do all of the eighteen. That way I will know that I have all the pieces that I need. So I have all of my eighteen blocks done with my one red corner, and my four are done for the four corners. I'm going to be able to take this pile and put it with the rest of the 6½" squares, and sew on all of my different colored corners. All the blocks of the quilt are now done. They all equal 6½". The nine-patch, we have thirty of them. The inside snowballs, we're going to need twenty. The corners, which only means you have this one red and the others are random, you're going to need eighteen, and then the two with the two red corners, you need four. And if you keep your blocks into four piles it's going to be easier when we go to put the entire quilt together. Now we need to make the setting triangles. The quilt is put together in rows going along the edge on a 45° angle. So each one of these is going to be a row. And this is where we need to have some setting triangles. So we need them along the sides and we're going to need one up at the top. So the setting squares start with six squares measured at 9¾". And you're going to cut once down the center and then apart. And that is going to give you all of the triangles that you're going to need that are going to go along the side. Those four corners you're going to need to start with two squares at 5⅛". Cut it in half and that's going to give you four corners. Now that we have these, we're going to be able to put the rows together. With those setting triangles cut we're going to be able to put the quilt together. And we can put the quilt together in two portions. The quilt is sewn together in rows vertically. And you have six rows going in one direction, and six coming up in the other direction. So each of the rows are identical as you go up. So to sew them, we're going to be able to keep that in mind and it makes it a lot easier. So we're going to start with row 1 on both sides and what we're going to do is take the snowball block with the two red ends. That is the first block with those two setting triangles. This extra here is a border we put on after. And we're going to be able to do this corner and this corner at the same time. So I have both of my snowball blocks, and I'm going to sew on the white triangles. These are the larger ones. The smaller triangles are going to fit right against that red edge. And you can see that this is already the corner of the quilt. This corner is now done on both edges. We need to do row two here, which is row two there. So we have a nine-patch, and a snowball with one of the red tips, and that red corner is going to be pointing out to the outside corner. When you put your setting triangles on, you're going to be able to see how this is still coming into that corner. You need to sew this row together and when you go to press, always press the seams away from the snowball blocks. And that way they're going to match up to each row. When row two is done, you're going to be able to sew those two rows together and those seams will match up perfectly. The next row where you have a nine-patch you are going to need just one of those center, regular snowballs, and they didn't have any of those red points on them. Two nine-patch. And then on the end, the snowballs with the red points. And the setting triangles. And we're going to be able to put the rows together in this manner: Always having a red point going out, and your four-patch and snowballs opposite to the next row. So we have row one, two, three done. We need to do four and five, and on six we're going to put on those double corners with the first five rows done, we have the last two center rows. And that is where we're going to add the double points for the corner. So at the end of that one row we have the double and a single, which is the same for the other row. So you still do not need to switch anything. They're all made by half a quilt. So this is the top part of the quilt and this is the side. What you're doing by adding that double one up in that corner, you're making the top corner. You're going to continue adding the pieces so that you have a nine-patch beside a snowball all the way along. The single red point is going to have the large triangle sewn on it. And the double red point is going to have the smaller triangle sewn on it. So what we have done by sewing those six rows together, we've made this half and we've made that half. And to put it together is very simple. We're going to sew those center seams together. If you want to make this bigger. It's very easy. You're just going to make each half larger. You're just going to be able to keep adding longer rows. And for each new row you just need a nine-patch matching the snowball block, and you need to have both sides the same. That way when you do go to sew it together the two halves are going to match perfectly. And you're going to have to keep in mind that if you do make it bigger that you have to keep the two last rows, which are the center rows, ending with this double-pointed snowball. That way you have your four corners. After that you can finish it off with a beautiful border. The pattern says 2½", but do what you feel is appropriate. And you can see how those red points are going to be very noticeable against that big background. With the basics of the quilt as being just two simple blocks, it's great that we can make it any size we want. All we need are the setting triangles to keep it square. And sewing on the diagonal is really not much different than sewing on the horizontal, once you know the direction you're going and you end up with a very pretty quilt. I'll put a link in the description to the free pattern and as always 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!
