Introducing the (ALMOST) ZERO WASTE Jagged X's FREE Quilt Pattern!

hi i'm donna jordan from jordan fabrics today i'm gonna show you how to make a quilt from a layer cake and we're gonna use the whole layer cake with no waste so this is pattern i came up with and it is free on our website there's a link right below the video and this is the block that it makes it's a very plain-looking block but once we make a bunch of them in different colors and put them together it's gonna make a nice secondary pattern that will show up in the quilt so all we need is two yards of a background and then we need our layer cake now mine has 40 squares most have 40 or 42 and we're going to use most of these in the patchwork and we're going to save out some of the light ones to use in the border now let's pick out the darker layer cake squares here because we want to make sure we have enough contrast between these fabrics and the background so all of these darker ones are gonna work even these will work because they have a lot of print on them there just happens to be some really light ones in here that one will work that will work see this one won't be good so we won't use this one probably won't use this one or this one all the rest look good I have the squares separated now so I have 32 darker ones and eight lighter squares now the lighter squares we're just going to set aside we'll use those later when we do the borders the dark squares all get cut exactly the same way so the first thing we're gonna do is cut a 3-inch piece off of the bottom of each one then we're going to cut them into two and a half inch strips and cut those in half so they're each three and a half inches long now I've written the pattern so you could do it from a jelly roll if you like if you're using jelly roll strips just cut them all up into three and a half inch lengths now the background also gets cut into two and a half by three and a half inch pieces so I'm gonna cut three and a half inch widths and then sub cut into two and a half if you happen to have a jelly roll that you're using for your background you will have two and a half inch strips again just cut it into three and a half inch segments it works either way now we're ready to start sewing we've just got these two pieces so I'm gonna take one background and one of the colored pieces and I'm going to line up this corner right here now I want to stitch from that point down to that point and the easiest way to do it is to put a piece of tape on your sewing machine lined up from the needle hole straight down so all I have to do is lift this up a little and find where that bottom corner is and point it at the needle hole and keep this corner down here on the line and stitch all the way along there just go slow and careful and keep that point right on the line now if you prefer of course you can mark the back of all of your squares all of your rectangles with a chalk or pencil but all you have to do really is keep it on that tape line so when we open this up now we've got a new rectangle so I'm going to go ahead and do that with all of these pieces now that we've got all these rectangles done we are going to want to cut off this excess in the back here so I'm going to leave a quarter inch seam allowance I've got my quarter inch lines on the stitching and we're just gonna cut that off now I know I said earlier there was no waste there is a little bit of waste so there's our rectangle but I'm not going to use this for anything else because even if I did a seam there it's pretty darn little now I might save that to stuff a pin cushion or something there's probably lots of things you can think of to use these little pieces for to iron these rectangles all I'm gonna do is put the light fabric down and then peel this open so that the seam allowances will be going towards the darker color and then give it a little steam so it goes really fast I kind of do an assembly line fashion I open up so now all we have to do is grab two different ones they're exactly the same but we're gonna turn one around and we're gonna stitch them together here now they're the same length there's no seam matching or anything just stitch right down here and that is the whole block so I'm gonna go ahead and do that with all the rest of my rectangles make a bunch of blocks now that all the blocks are done we can start laying out the quilt it's very easy the blocks only go up and down or sideways so you can just keep alternating and keep laying them out like this now once you have them a bunch laid out you can start trading around so that you can get colors you like going together but what I do first is just lay out a whole bunch of them just keep alternating up and down in sideways up and down inside ones so these blocks they're easy to make they're fairly repetitious which is really nice if you are having to stay at home and stay away from other people this is a good project to do to calm your mind and just let your hands keep sewing now we can see the pattern showing up so you can see these dark pinwheels and you can see kind of a light windmill right there and it just flows throughout the whole quilt so I'm going to go ahead and sew the rows so the blocks in two rows and sew the rows together there's no fancy matching you have to match all of your intersections but as long as you alternate the directions of your seam allowance so so the first row with all the seam allowances to the right the next row with all the seam allowances to the left you'll be able to nest everything and have your intersections match very nicely the patchwork is all done and that part was really easy really easy to sell those blocks together now let's work on the borders so what we're going to use remember those pieces we cut off of all the layer cakes we're gonna use those pieces and then we're going to take the reserved layer layer cake squares and we're going to cut these into strips a three inch a three inch and a four inch and then we will have no waste now we're going to take all of these pieces and we're going to sew them side-by-side into a really wide strip unit now I'm going to use a very small stitch length because I want my stitches to be really little because once we stitch these together we're going to cut them and I don't want the stitching to come out so I'm just going to pick up a variety of colors I'm not going to go in any particular order and I'm not gonna worry when I come to the four inch width I'm just going to sew it on as if it was the same width as all the others so I'm just going to sew these together so let me show you they're all the same length I'm going to use a quarter inch seam but very tiny stitches so I'm just gonna keep adding pieces here and every time I stitch I'm gonna finger press to the right and I'm gonna keep adding stitches till I've got all these strips sewn together so now we've got a big long piece here and we are gonna press it up a little bit I heard it a little bit flat before we cut it I did finger press everything so it's pretty flat already but I like to make sure it's a little bit flatter before we cut it now I've got this whole big piece of patchwork and I'm gonna fold it in half and I can cut this all at one time I'm gonna do four or six layers now if you're not comfortable cutting that many layers you can just make your patchwork piece with half as many pieces and then cut it and then stitch them together afterwards you need to do what's comfortable for you I don't mind cutting this many layers so I'm going to fold it up a couple of times and I'm folding it so that the seams are not all on top of themselves the seam allowances so it's really not that many layers yeah I'm gonna put it on my cutting board here make sure it's straight the strip unit it's ten inches wide so if you want to make a zero-waste quilt you can cut four pieces that are two and a half inches wide out of here and that'll use up the whole strip unit now I notice that I have some slight imperfections over here like right here all of my seams are not the edges are not meeting up perfectly so I'm gonna do mine with an almost no waste method not a zero waste I'm going to cut off a half inch here and I'm gonna cut all four borders two and a quarter inches and then they will have nice straight cuts on both edges and I'll be a lot happier when I saw these on the quilt so you're gonna take two of these I'm gonna spread them out on a big table you don't have to have a big table but it helps a little so these are patchwork borders so we're gonna take the first one and open it up here see how fun that looks already now the second one it's exactly the same and all I'm going to do is slide this down six-and-a-half inches so I'm just gonna measure this six and a half inches and I'm gonna lay this right next to the the first one right next to the second one and this way we're gonna stitch these together but the seams are going to be staggered so we might end up somewhere along here where to meet but for the most part there's no matching and they're not going to meet up at all it's just gonna look very random now I'm just going to flip this over so they're right sides together and I'm gonna put some pins in I'm gonna pin it all the way down every foot or so and this is just to make sure that I don't stretch either one of them as I stitch them together now I'm just going to stitch these two borders together using a quarter inch seam and just leave this excess here it's possible we might need it at the far end but I don't think so now I'm going to finger that finger press that seam to one side so I like to start at the top here just pull it open and then either use your fingernail or the pad of your finger and press that open now that the Patrick border is done you can see if we put this right onto the quilt it's just way too busy but I'm planning on putting what I call a sandwich border so I'm going to put black on both sides of the patchwork I'm going to sandwich the patchwork between these two guys and then put it on to the clock so I'm going to go ahead and sew these in two long strips and put them on each side of the patchwork I've got the borders on both sides of the patchwork now I'm going to show you how to put these on your quilt with mitered corners so that the pattern will meet up in the corners so each I've got two long border pieces here each one of these is going to do a short border and a long border so let's cut the short border first so we're going to lay this across the quilt not across the end of the call do it a foot or two up even across the middle and slide it over so that you've got enough hanging off the edge here so that when we make a diagonal line here you've got enough space there so here's how we can tell so if we put this I've got a half square triangle here we're gonna want to put this so that it is on the edge of the fabric there and I'm gonna draw a chalk line now my half square triangle won't make it all the way up but that's okay once I've got it started I'm just going to turn this around and continue the line now I'm going to slide this border over so where that line comes in it's on the edge of the quilt now I'm going to smooth this over all the way across the quilt nice and flat and I'm gonna draw another line over here with the same angle so now this one I'm gonna have to start at the edge of the quilt here now make sure you've got this on here straight you can use the patchwork lines here to help you make sure it's straight and just start your line go as far as you can and then turn it around and finish your line so I'm gonna do two borders that are this size one from this piece and one from this piece then I'm gonna do the same thing in the other direction now I'm just going to cut on that drawn line and this border will be exactly the size we need seam allowances included to fit on to here's the two shorter borders and they're pinned on to the shorter edges of the quilt now the longer borders were cut exactly the same way so you still match up the end of this border with the end of the quilt and same thing down here so they're exactly the same length done exactly the same method as the short ones so I'm just gonna peel this back out of the way a little bit and pin this on with the edge the corner of this right in the corner there and I'll pin it all the way along here and then I'll show you how to stitch these on so we're going to stitch each side on separate and we're going to stop and start one quarter inch from the edge so up here I'm not going to start stitching all the way at the edge here I'm going to start right there which is a quarter inch in from all sides so I'm gonna I'm gonna start and I'm gonna back tack just a little bit so I'm gonna leave my pin there so I can see where to where to start right here once you know where that is you can just put the needle down and then just take a couple of stitches forward and back and then go all the way down to the far end and do the same thing stop when you get a quarter inch from the edge so I'm coming to the far end of the border and if you like if it's helpful you could always put a dot right here a quarter inch away from all edges then you can stitch to the dot and now we can fold this out of the way and get this corner started here again if you want to put a dot there put one right here that'll be where we start and stop and that is going to be right where we stopped stitching on this seam so that's right where we start stop stitching that's right where this dot is so you want to start stitching there but don't back tack be on your dot and stitch all the way down this side now that we've got the borders on let me show you what happens I'll open that one up and we'll open that one up and all we have to do is stitch this last seam here so to stitch that I'm going to fold these so that those edges are right sides together I'm basically folding the quilt along a 45 degree angle there I'm going to turn it around and I'm going to stick a couple pins in so I'm gonna make the very tips match here and I'm gonna make sure that my seams here where they're coming together I'm gonna make sure those line up again put a couple pins in same thing right here and now you can see those chalk dots on both sides and all we have to do is stitch from that dot all the way down so I'm gonna put the needle in right there and I'm gonna back tack I'm gonna go forward and then backwards don't go backwards beyond to the dot and then stitch right along the edge [Music] this is just the easiest method for getting your mitered corners done because minor corners are a little bit scary even for me but this is just a perfect way and let me show you what it looks like there we go I've got it all stitched up ironed flat and it's all loaded on to the quilting machine now we need to pick out a good thread color I'm pretty sure if I use black it will match but it'll be way too dark in these light areas so I've pulled off some different gray colors here this one matches won't show much in the black it's a little bit stark in there now we've got a medium gray it's gonna show a little more in the black but that's really only on the border it barely shows in they're not going to show much in the patchwork and of course we could always go with this lighter one again will show even more there but just hides in there and I really think the light one will look the best so that's what I'm gonna use this quilt will really look best with an overall design and I'm going to use these feathers that's going to blend in with all the patchwork it's not going to stick out and it's going to be nice and even [Applause] I've got the whole quilt done and I'm so happy with how the quilting finished up I love the fact that the thread is showing in this black border but it's not showing it all here in the patchwork now the quilt ended up about 55 by 63 a really fun size to make and the technique that I showed you for putting on the mitered borders will work on any quilt it's just an awesome way of putting on those mitered borders now on the backing I use this geometric black-and-white print and you can't see the quilting at all with that light silver thread and I like the solid black binding it looks great on the top and it looks great from the backside thanks for watching our tutorial today on how to make the jagged X's quilt I hope you enjoyed it now we're gonna have a giveaway this is a quilt called starburst this is one that we made in a video really nice cozy quilt designs pattern it's got these awesome dragonfly wing fabrics all in the top on the back just beautiful fabrics and you can win this quote so all you have to do is go to the link that says giveaway and then enter your email address and your name and you might win this quilt and we can ship it anywhere in the world so good luck now if you like our videos and you want to support us the best thing you can do is subscribe to our YouTube channel that would really help us out happy quilting

Channel: Jordan Fabrics

Views: 710,537

Rating: 4.9396434 out of 5

Keywords: Quilt, quilting, quilts, fabric, fabrics, pre cuts, table runner, table runners, sew, sewing, Jordan Fabrics, Jordan's, jordan, floating point, Donna Jordan, Matt Jordan, Patterns, 4k, tutorial, let's make, vlog, quilt shop, quilt store, free, fun, diy, layer, cake, charm, pack, strip, set, tube, strips, jelly, roll, fat, quarter, stay, home, house, deco, decoration, arts, crafts, art, craft, make, build, stitch, needle, thread, easy, fast, quick, hobby, mitered, corner, corners

Id: Ghg7aXt6qMc

Length: 21min 35sec (1295 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 04 2020