Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC.
And I have a really fun project for you today. I’m really excited to show you this because
people have been asking me for a long time, is there an easy way to do the Card Trick
block? This is an old fashioned block called the Card Trick block and I think we’ve come
up with it. So let’s take a look at this quilt behind me. Isn’t this gorgeous? It’s
just so pretty. We’ve added a little bit of extra flare with this secondary block right
here. And I just love it. I can’t wait to show you. So to make this make this quilt
what you’re going to need is one roll of 2 ½ strips. And we have used Twilight Tones
by Nancy Ring for Marcus Fabrics. And you’re also going to need some background fabric.
This is white fabric here. And for that you’re going to need 4 yards. And then your outer
border here, this is 1 ¾ yards and it’s a little five inch border. For your backing
we used 108 backing and we used 2 ¾ yards. And you can see it’s just a pretty part
of the fabric line that we’ve used back here. Now this makes a really big quilt because
of the amount of background fabric and the strip set, it makes a quilt that is 83 by
94. So it’s a pretty good size quilt. And I love a big quilt. I love a bed quilt. So
let me show you how to do this. The first thing we’re going to do is we’re
going to get our strips. And I have some strips here. And these are obviously have already
been cut on. But from each strip you’re going to want to cut six 4 ½ inch blocks
and six 2 ½ inch blocks. Now you’re going to get out of each strip, you’re actually
going to get six blocks. But it’s actually a quarter of the block. So this is the block
we’re talking about here. Let me get this one right here. And so you have your 4 ½
inch piece here and your 2 ½ inch piece. And you need four of those to make one block.
So, so again out of each strip we’re going to cut four, I mean sorry, six 4 ½ inch pieces.
And six 2 ½ inch pieces. And I’m going to just match up some of these and cut one
set so I can show you how to make one block. And actually I’m going to get enough for
two because these are all folded in half. But that’s alright. Alright so here we go.
We’re counting, one, two, three, 4 ½. And we’re going to cut right here. And I’m
going to set those aside and then we’re going to cut one set of 2 ½. And this is
just for me to make this block to show you. You’ll want to go ahead and cut all your
strips. Alright I’m going to set these over here. Now you want to match every strip, every
4 ½ inch rectangle with a 2 ½ inch square. You want to keep those together so that when
you are ready to put your quilt together you don’t have to go hunting for your pieces.
So I’m going to put those together, one of these together like this and then we’ve
got this one over here. Alright, now normally I would just go through my whole pile and
just make that happen. I actually think I’m going to look for a green one over here and
see if I can find a nice green block. Instead of three blues I’ll have a little bit more
color in here. Alrighty, there we go. Alright so I’m going to pull that one and I’m
going to have these four right here. Alright now the first thing we’re going
to do is we’re going to make a four patch. So you’re going to take your four squares,
your four 2 ½ inch squares. You’re going to decide how you want them. And I’m going
to mix mine up like this. And we’re going to sew those together. So let’s go to the
sewing machine and do that. And I’m just, you just lay them right sides together and
sew a quarter of an inch down the side. And I’m going to grab these other two, fold
them over and sew the quarter of an inch. Now I’m going to open these up, leave them
connected, open them up and just lay them on top of each other. And make my middles
match. Make one seam go one direction and one seam go the other. Alright, now we’re
going to press this open. You want your center to be pretty good because this is one of those
blocks that’s an illusion block. And so, you know, what it ends up looking like is
a little different than what it is. Now what you’re going to do is you’re going to
take two of your outer pieces and you’re going to match them up here. So I’m putting
the red by here and the green over here. Just like that. Alright? And we’re going to sew
those onto our square. And I’m just going to line this up here, sew it down the side.
And one more over here. Alrighty. Now I’m going to press these open. And I’m just
going to roll them back. Alright now what we’re going to do is we’re
going to take these two pieces and we’re going to put them over here. But before we
sew them down we’re going to add a 2 ½ inch square of the background white to either
side. So you’re going to need four 2 ½ inch squares for each block that we’re making.
So we’ve got one here and one here like this. And we’re going to sew these two pieces
together like this. So let’s go sew this one over here. And we’re just going to put
a white square on either side of our 4 ½ inch rectangle. And I’m going to grab this
one too and just kind of chain piece them through. And then I’m going to sew a white
to the other side. Alright once you get these done you’re going to press them open. And
I’m just going to roll that back and roll this one back and do the same to this other
piece. And then we’re going to add it, this one to this side and that one to that side,
just like this. So you’re going to lay them on and match the seams. And we’re going
to sew that together. Alrighty. So when you go to add this on just make sure that your
little seam on the corner nests up really nice. And now I’ll put it on the other side.
Again I like to take those few little anchoring stitches and then make sure that my seams
are lined up. And when you push one seam one way and then the other, I can feel with my
finger that there’s no room in between. Alright, let me press this out. There we go.
Nice flat block. Now this is the Card Trick block. Traditionally
the Card Trick block is made with half square triangles and quarter square triangles. And
it’s really quite a bit of work. But the trick is we have to turn this on point so
it actually looks like the Card Trick. So what we’re going to do is we’re going
to take our background fabric and we’re going to cut it into seven inch squares because
we’re going to now set this block on point. Which means that now it’s going to sit on
the point of its block. And so what I want to do is I want to take a seven inch square
and I’m going to snowball the corners with my other 2 ½ inch block. So let me just do
that. You can draw the line like that or you can iron it and sew side to side. I’m going
to put one on each corner, on two diagonal corners, only two corners. Not each corner
but only two corners. So we’re going to sew right here. Side to side, then I’m going
to flip this to the other side and sew side to side. You’re going to need two of these
for each, for each square, two of these blocks because what we’re going to do is we’re
going to trim these off like this. We’re going to iron them out over here, press them
out. And press them out. And then we’re going to cut our, excuse me. We’re going
to cut our block diagonally just like this. So lay your ruler corner to corner and just
cut like this. You’re going to need four of these and we’re going to attach them
to all four sides. So I have another one over here that I already did. And I’m going to
go ahead and cut that. Now what I like to do for a little bit of accuracy is I like
to fold them and get a little crease right here so that I know exactly where the middle
is. And I’m going to do that to all four of these and this one here. And then you have
to do that to your block as well. So fold it in half. And with your fingernail you can
crease both sides. And then this one as well. You just need a little mark so you can see
where the center is. Alright so now what we’re going to do is
we’re going to line up our center marks. And we’re going to put one on all four sides
of our block like this. Just like that. So how we’re going to do that. The first thing
we’re going to do is we’re going to attach the two sides. And we’ll go to the sewing
machine and do that. And once the sides are attached then we’re going to put the top
and bottom on. So I’m going to line up, make sure my marks match up here. And then
I look over here as well and make sure there’s even amounts sticking off the block on either
side. We’re going to sew a quarter of an inch down. And we’re going to add one on
this side too. And this is going to give us that secondary block. So let me look over
here. Pretty even. Alright now let’s iron these open. Be careful though, don’t press
out your little creases that you made on your little center blocks. Alright now we’re
going to attach these to the sides, the other sides to finish our block. And now you should
notice that your squares, let me show you over here. You should notice there’s not
very much hangover on those squares. And so we’re going to sew a quarter of an inch
down this side. And we’re going to add this one as well. Alrighty, now I’m going to
press these back. And you’ve got some pretty good bunny ears on those corners so if you
want to trim those off you can. What I generally do is I take a look at my block and usually
it’s a little wonky out here on the sides. So then I’m just going to trim it up. I’m
not actually squaring it up. I’m just lining my ruler up with my corner blocks and trimming
off that little bit that, you know is going to keep it from being absolutely perfect.
And you can actually square up your block any size you want. But I like this method.
You know when you go to set a block on point there’s all kinds of formulas and it’s
so much work to figure out. I must have trimmed that one already. Oh here’s the one I haven’t
trimmed. It’s so much work to figure out what size block you need. And basically what
I did was I looked at the size of my block. And I’ll show you that here in just a second.
So I looked at the size of my block right here. And it is one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight and a half. And I just went down an inch or an inch and a half to seven.
So whatever size your block was I just subtracted an inch and a half and went down to seven
and that’s the size I cut diagonally for my blocks because this is the block you get
when you’re all done, snowballed in the corners and we’re ready to put it together. Now let me show you how that happens. We’re
going to put four of these together so you can see how this lines up here in the middle.
And it gives you this secondary little block right there. So you’re just going to sew
them block to block. Oop, let’s turn that one. We don’t want the same fabric in there.
You’re just going to sew them block to block together like this and then together like
this. And you’re going to do that to your whole quilt. So let’s take a look at how
many blocks we have here. We have one, two, three, four, five, six, and one, two, three,
four, five, six, seven, down. So we’ve made 42 of these great big blocks that are just
awesome. And we have hopefully made the Card Trick block a little easier for you. So we
hope you enjoyed this tutorial from the MSQC.
