Nicola: Hello, I'm Nicola from Daisy & Grace,
and back in the summer I was exhibiting at the Festival of Quilts here in the UK, and
I had the great privilege of meeting Jenny from Missouri Star Quilt Company. Hi Jenny. Hi Missouri Star. Nicola: I got to show her my quilt-as-you-go
templates, and the wonderful quilts that you can create from them, and she loved them and
took them back to America with her. Thanks Jenny. I'm now really excited and really thrilled,
because I'm partnering with Missouri Star to bring you my quilt-as-you-go templates,
and Jenny is going to show you some of the wonderful things you can do with them, and
I hope you love them as much as I do, and as much as Jenny does. So I'm going to pass you over to Jenny, and
I just wish you all happy sewing! Jenny: Hi everybody. It's Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company,
and I'm here today with Misty and Natalie, and we are so excited because it's Black Friday,
and we've got an awesome project for you today. Take a look at this quilt behind me. Isn't this great? We, all three of us, love hexagons, and this
is a quilt-as-you-go method. So it's like one and done, and we love those
kinds of projects. So I was in England this summer, sorry girls. Misty: We were not. Natalie: Missed out this time. Maybe next time. Jenny: But I was in England for the Birmingham
Quilt Festival, and there was a booth there called Daisy & Grace, and it was just wonderful
projects, all these wonderful projects. And I was standing there looking at them,
and I got caught up in a demo that Nicola was doing, and she was showing how to make
this. And I was like, "Wait, what?" And whenever I find something new like that,
I just want to show you. I just want to bring it home and show you. So we are partnering with her to show you
how to make this quilt-as-you-go hexagon project. And it's just so cool. And when the girls saw me doing it, they had
the same feelings. They got real excited about it, too. So let's show them how to make one of these. This is the little pod we're talking about,
right here, and... Is pod the right word? I don't know if that's the right word, exactly. Misty: It's a little hexie. Natalie: A little finished hexie. Jenny: Hexie. A little finished hexie. So the templates come like this, in two pieces. Now, just the wonderful part about this... Well let's just show them, because it'll do
it. Jenny: So Natalie, because I was over sewing
like a crazy woman, and I want to see what's happening, Natalie did most of my cutting
for me, so I'm going to let her show you how she did that, and how she cut this, because
it makes a lot of sense. Natalie has a mathematical brain, and so she
designs a lot alongside me, and she figures out a lot of the hard stuff. I do the fun stuff, so go ahead. I'll let you talk now. Natalie: Well I'm going to cut off the selvedge,
because that way I don't have to worry about getting caught in my hexagon. Jenny: Good plan. Natalie: And we cut a six inch strip, because
that is the distance between these two flat sides. And if you fold it then in thirds, so it's
still with the fabric on the fold. You've got a normal strip and you can fold
it in thirds. Jenny: And it is important to use yardage
on this back, because it's bigger. There's not a precut that fits with it. The precut- Natalie: Yeah, it's pretty wasteful to use
a layer cake. Jenny: The precut we use for this was this
sugar sack one by Whistler Studios for Windham Fabrics, but that just is the middle block. Natalie: Yep. Jenny: Okay. Natalie: And that fits perfectly. You can see it's just a really easy... Jenny: Yeah, that fits great on there. Natalie: So it's low wastage if your middle
fits on your five-inch square, and then your backing fits on a six-inch strip, and you
just cut these little sides off. And I cut through all the folds so you don't
have to worry about trimming those later. And if your six inch strip is straight, it
lines right up with the sides of the template. Whoops. Almost chopped off my finger, but that's okay. Jenny: Took off a finger. Natalie: And then you've got six background
squares cut- Misty: At once. Natalie: ...At once, which makes it super
convenient, and it goes by pretty fast. Jenny: It does go by fast and it went by really
fast for me, because she did it all. Misty: It was a big group effort. Jenny: All right, so then you need to cut
your middles, and for that you're going to take the middle, which makes sense, and you're
just going to lay it on that square and cut your corners off, and get that. Jenny: You also need batting. And so, I don't know about you, but I always
have scraps of batting leftover, and this is a great project for using up those scraps. And we would lay this on... Well, we probably did about four layers, too,
didn't we? Natalie: No. When you're cutting batting, it's easier to- Jenny: Push so hard! Natalie: Yeah, no, it's easier to just do- Misty: It gets a little dangerous. Natalie: Like, two. Jenny: Two at a time. Natalie: So I just folded it over one time
and cut two at a time, because I had a harder time going through all those thicknesses. Jenny: Right. Misty: Don't want to cut yourself. Jenny: No. Natalie: Yeah. Jenny: All right, so then here's this back
piece, and this becomes the back of your quilt, at the end of the day. And so we're going to lay this down, and we're
going to lay this right here on top of this, just like this. What that gives us is a grid to lay everything
so it lines up perfectly. So in that little middle right there, we're
going to put a piece of batting, like this, and it fits perfectly. And we're going to put this top square on
there, too. Jenny: Now what you want to do is you want
to use some pins. I have a plethora of pins here, because we
all use different pins, and these are those magic pins, and they're magic because they're
made out of silicone, and you can iron right on top of them, which I love. Misty: And it's super useful for this project. Jenny: Yeah. And I didn't know the pin thing was going
to be a big deal for me, but Nicola recommended the pins, and I was just like, "Okay." Okay, so- Natalie: Turns out they're amazing. Misty: They are amazing. Jenny: Turns out they're amazing. And I'm kind of a make-do girl, so I use any
pin that I can come, but it turns out I really like these. Jenny: So what you're going to do is you're
going to put a pin through your center, like this, so that it doesn't move or go anywhere. And then you remove your template, and this
is what you're left with. So let me go ahead and show you how to do
this. Jenny: So we're going to start here on a side,
like this, and we're going to fold it up until it meets the fabric, just like this. And I've kind of finger pressed this down,
and then I fold it up again over for the edge of the fabric. And I'm going to stick a pin in here, like
this, about halfway, and then I'm just going to rotate. And I'm going to do the same thing all the
way around, like this. So again, finger press and roll up, and put
a pin in there. Natalie: It's really interesting that you're
doing it that way, because maybe it's the difference between being right-handed and
left-handed, but I fold from the top. So when I put mine together- Jenny: Oh, interesting. Misty: I did too, yeah. Natalie: Yeah, so when I put mine together,
I went ahead and lined them up, your batting and your top are the same size. And I actually was kind of okay with not putting
a pin in the middle, because I was in a hurry, but it's easier for me to fold it down from
the top, and then I hold that with my fingers and just go around this way. Jenny: Oh that's interesting, and I actually
put... when I get this little corner folded up, because if you do... If this is right in the center, then you get
those perfect mitered corners, and so when I fold mine up, then I put my pin right through
that mitered corner, like this. Misty: To hold that miter in place. Jenny: To hold the miter, and then pin down,
and then I turn it. So this is what's fun about a project like
this, is that the fun is in getting it done, and getting it [crosstalk 00:07:48] finished. Misty: Well, and I think it's really important
to see that, as you're pinning, it doesn't lay perfectly flat. It looks a little rumpled, because for me,
I was like, "Oh man, how is this going to work?" But that's how it's supposed to look. So don't panic if it's a little rumpled. And that's just part of the pinning process. Natalie: And then the last one. Jenny: And then this last one, you come down
here, and you're back where you started, and I move my pin along so that I can do it. And you just have these two sides coming down,
and I just fold up, and move this thread. Oh- Misty: Oh no. Jenny: Flatten. And then I just fold up, and I fold up again,
like this, and it makes a still... You keep that perfect miter. Jenny: And then what I did... I would just sit and do these, I did a whole
stack of these, and then I'm going to slide this back so it kind of lays over that edge. And then you iron them. Actually don't iron, you press them. So make sure that little corner is staying
down. And, literally, you just hold the iron on
there, give it a shot of steam. There you go. Little shot of steam. Misty: It'll steam in a minute. Jenny: And it stays nice and everything, all
of a sudden, lays flat. Now there's two ways to do this, obviously. Well, obviously, there's more than two ways,
but sewing them together. So Nicola did hers by hand, all the way around
here by hand, and I want to show you that stitch, but of course I was like a horse to
water. I wanted to see what these were going to look
like. So I did mine by machine, and you can see
right here, this is mine by machine. And basically, I put it under the edge of
the needle and just topstitched all the way around this. Now I have one here that I did in gray. It looks horrible, but- Misty: I wanted you to be able to see it. Jenny: I wanted you to be able to see the
stitching. But when you use white- Natalie: If your thread matches your background
fabric, it doesn't show at all. Jenny: Your thread should match your background
fabric. Let me just say that. Misty: So don't sew it in gray, but that way
you can see it. Natalie: Unless your background fabric is
gray of course. Jenny: Right, you want to use your thread
to match that background fabric. Now if you're going to sew it by hand, what
you're going to do is I come... Actually let me clip off this little knot. I'm going to make a single turn knot, so I'm
going to lay my thread around, wrap it around my finger one time, and then roll that off
and slide it down. That's how I do my knots, and I'm going to
make sure that my knot landed... Wait a minute. Oh, here it is. My knot landed right here, so I'm just going
to trim off a little bit of this excess thread, because when you sew by hand, you want to
hide the knot. So what we're going to do is, we're going
to go in here like this, and I'm going to come out right on the edge here of the fold,
and you'll see it'll stop right there. But if I give it a little wiggle, it'll pop
right in and then that knot is gone. Jenny: And so then what we're going to do
is, we're going to stitch this like we're stitching a binding. So we're going to come around, oh now it caught
on my pin, so I'm just going to remove that one. If they fight with me, they don't get to stay. All right, so then we're just going to keep
going around here like this and we'll hand stitch these down. And one of the things I love about this kind
of a product is that it just is fun to take with you, so once you get them all pinned
and you're ready to hand sew them down, you can go. Jenny: So we're just going to go straight
in here like this, right where we came out, we're going to go straight in and we're going
to come up at the fold just right here. Natalie: That is just like binding. Jenny: It's just exactly like binding, straight
down, you don't go through to the back, and up. So straight down and up, and honestly you
can go all the way around your top and get those done. Natalie: So if you're joining them together
by hand, is it a ladder stitch? Or do you whip stitch them together? Jenny: So basically there's several schools
of thought on that. The ladder stitch works and there's also... Nicola has her own little stitch that she
uses, and let me get down this side and I'll show you that little stitch. I'll just finish this one side right here,
and I'm just going to knot it. I wouldn't normally stop it right here, but
I'm going to stop it and show how she does that little stitch where it sews together. Jenny: She has a cute little video on her
site of showing how she stitched these together, and I thought that was a great stitch. And she said she thought she was doing a ladder
stitch and then she started looking at ladder stitches and she was like, "Hmm," and she
couldn't find what stitch she was doing, and so she just named it the Nicola stitch. So I'm good with that. Misty: That's awesome. Jenny: She gets her own stitch, I'm good with
that. So basically again, you're going to hide your
knot, so you're going to slide it through here and give that knot a pull. Sometimes they're too big to go through. Let me see if I can wiggle that one through
there without... There we go. It went, yay. Natalie: So you line them up facing each other? Jenny: You line them up face to face and here,
this part hasn't been sewn yet. Now you would sew down all your fronts first. And what she did was, she came straight across
like this and then right here, where she was straight, she'd come up about a quarter of
an inch or however far, I didn't measure it, like maybe an eighth. Misty: Yeah it looks like- Jenny: And then you'd come back across the
other side like this and right where you came out. So it's kind of like a... Well it's a special Nicola stitch. So again through the edge and then across
right here and it just brings them together and then again slide it under. Natalie: It's very similar to ladder. Jenny: Is it similar to ladder? Natalie: Yeah, I think it's just like the
way you hold the fabric is different. Jenny: And that can be different from... Misty: Person to person... Jenny: ...and left-hand to right-hand. Misty: That's true. Natalie: Yeah. Jenny: All right, so let's take a look at
these few. You open it up and see you really can't really
see those stitches. Those are pretty good. We were so excited to do these that we just
did them on the sewing machine. Misty: We did. Jenny: Quicker for us and easier. So I'm actually going to clip these apart
right here and Misty, I'm going to have you sew one of these around so you can actually
see how fast this was and how fun. Misty: Great. Jenny: So basically when I started mine, I
started at this edge that comes up, so that I'm always sewing so my bottom is tucked under. If you fold your fabric around in a circle,
then you'll always have that. The corner that you come to will always be
on the top. Natalie: Right. Except for the very last one, it has two open
sides. It's not difficult. Jenny: That's why I start on that last one,
I start on the side that's folded up. Natalie: Oh, just to get past it? Jenny: Yeah, just to get past it. Natalie: Now I always started in the middle
of a straight side, because I wanted to overlap my stitches and not have to worry about that. Jenny: She's so great too, she whipped this
one up by hand and mailed it to us from England so we'd have this to show you and we were
just so excited to make these and we got, oh my gosh, we have... I just can't wait to show you. We have so many things that we did that were
so fun. Misty: Yes. We just had a blast and we're just top stitching
close to the edge here. Jenny: With that gray thread. Misty: ...so you can see, now remember you
want to match. Jenny: Remember you want to match your thread. Natalie: And she just leaves the needle down
and pivots at the corner. Misty: Leave the needle down and pivot at
each corner, that's right. Natalie: Super easy. Jenny: Yeah, those are really good things
that you tend to do rote and so you think everybody thinks of that, but they don't. So leave your needle down and pivot at your
corners. Natalie: Pull your pin out. Jenny: Yeah, pull your pins out as you go
along. I actually kept a little pin cushion right
there next to my things, so I could stick them in, stick them in and stick them in. And these pins, let me just explain while
Misty's finishing up this last side. So these pins are actually all different lengths
and so... Can you see that? So some of us like the longer ones, some of
us like the shorter ones, do what works best for you. It was just I love the idea that you could
just iron on top of these. Pretty cool. All right, so now we're ready. Let's sew two of these together. Misty: Okay. Jenny: We're just going to sew two of these
together right here. Misty: And all we do for that, is we just
sit them together and then zigzag in between. Jenny: Okay. Now all honesty, I had some sides like this
that didn't line up exactly, and when you're hand-sewing that doesn't matter because you
can make it work easier. When you're machine-sewing, I just looked
for one that was... because they're all pretty close, but one that was really close. And so I started with that and I've just set
them together like this, and then I looked at my zigzag, and I didn't want a huge one
and so I just picked a little zigzag, and you're going to back stitch at the top. With the gray thread that's going to look
really rough, but you'll be able to see it anyway, how it works. Jenny: Okay, so now... And basically you just set it in there. Keep, with your hands keep the two pieces
together. Misty: On my presser foot there is a center
mark, if you were going to have your needle in the center, and so when I have my two pieces
I just keep them right on that center mark. Jenny: Oh that's a good idea too. Misty: Then I know my zigzag is going to catch
both sides. Jenny: Right. I just had to put on my glasses, my magnifiers,
so I can actually see that thing sewn together. Misty: I back stitched again there and then
right off the edge. Here we go. Jenny: Look at that. So now these are together and you literally
just keep putting them together and as you get your next row, so if this was all finished
it would be on here like this, and your next row would be finished too. And see, we'd still sew it together by the
ends like this, and we would just slide it into that little... So see how that goes like that? You're just going to slide it into there. So you'd sew all of these and then you'd come
in and sew here, here, here, here, here, here, like this, for as long as you want it. And there was so much freedom with that and
with the movement. Jenny: All right, so actually here's this
one little flower right here. That's so cute and so fun. I made a quilt like Nicola's, only... Misty: Machine. Jenny: Machine. And so this is mine. Natalie: It's a little bit smaller. Misty: Little smaller, yeah. Jenny: Little smaller, but on the back... It's a little smaller and I'll show you why
in a minute. So on the back, my back is all the same. Now I want to point something out with Nicola's- Misty: It's so cute. Jenny: ...is that she used some bright colored
fabric. So she's got red in here and a blue in here
and a yellow in here, but when you look at the back then, look at that. Look how cute that is, the little solids that
pop here and there. Misty: So cute. Jenny: And so that back fabric matters and
there's fun things you can think about to do with that. But the reason my blanket got smaller was
because I wanted to see what it would look like as a table runner. How cute is this? Natalie: It's so cute. Jenny: Isn't that fun? Misty: Adorable. Jenny: All right girls. Natalie: We all need one. Misty: Okay. Jenny: We all need one, in Christmas! Misty: Mine wandered over again. Jenny: Natalie got... So Misty did hers a little different. Misty: Well, yes. So I saw Jenny's flower here and then I thought,
"Man I really want mine to look like flowers," but it just wasn't working for me. So I had an idea. Instead of using a pack of five inch squares,
I went and got a fat quarter bundle. This is what I used and I decided to make
my flowers out of the background fabric. So the back of the normal quilt is really
the front of mine, and so you can see all these flowers. Natalie: That is so cute, I love it. Jenny: That's so cute. So she actually cut this part- Misty: It's the larger hexie. Jenny: ...out of the hexie. So the large hexie ring was cut out of the
fat quarter and then she put grays in the center. Misty: And I used yardage for... Jenny: And so look at all the gray. Natalie: It looks so good. Misty: And so fun. Jenny: Either side is so cute. Misty: So fun and it makes me so happy, and
I did mine on machine as well. Jenny: I think we should hold this up for
a minute. There we go. Isn't that so cute? And then let's swap it over so you can see
the other side. Misty: And you can still see the flowers a
little bit there but not quite as noticeable. Jenny: Really cute. Misty: So fun. Jenny: All right Natalie. Natalie made a table topper. Natalie: I just wanted to see how big it would
get with one charm pack, and I also like a circular table topper because I have a square
table. So this is mine. Jenny: Look how cute that is. Natalie: I used navy for my background. So it's solid on the back, but also top stitched
with a machine, not by hand. But as I was making this, I thought it would
be super cute if you just took the center out and then left one side open and made a
tree skirt, so I made that too. Jenny: A Christmas tree skirt. Misty: So cute. Natalie: So I made that two trees. So here's my Christmas fabrics and I left
the center open and then these just go together. Jenny: Here, let me close these pins because
they're going to go everywhere. I can see that happening. All right, so lay this down. Misty: And this is two, right? Two packs? Natalie: Well it's one, yeah, it's two. Misty: Okay. Jenny: About. And again, remember these are great scrap
projects because you can pick whatever you want, but right here... So we just took the hexagon out of the middle
and then Natalie left this zig-zaggy line open here. Natalie: I just didn't finish one seam so
that I could put it around my tree, and I think it's super cute. Jenny: You'll notice on a lot of hers, this
outer ring has a black background, but the other ones are not the same background. They are different and so when you flip this
over, look what you get on the back here. Misty: It's reversible. Jenny: And it's so cute. I love how cute it is. Now you'll notice that you used bigger pieces
of fabric for the backs of these because that's bigger than charm. Natalie: Yes. I had some scraps, I thought they were really
cute. Jenny: Yeah, so layer cake squares would work,
anything like that. The black, is this just yardage? Natalie: Yip, just some yardage I had in my
stash. Jenny: It's so darling. Natalie: You can be creative and do whatever
you want. If you have pieces big enough to cut for the
back, then go for it. Misty: And all of these projects really can
be reversible when you think of it that way. Jenny: Absolutely, because look at the front,
it's so cute. All right now, since we got carried away and
we made a whole bunch of projects, we made you a printable that has a list of all the
different things that we've made and the amounts of stuff that you'll need for them, so that
you can create these too. These are great stash busters. These are great planned projects. Whatever it is that you want to do, it's just
really, really fun. So this has been really fun for us. We've really enjoyed it. We love the idea of the quilt-as-you-go hexagon. Jenny: Now one of the things I want to mention
about the quilt-as-you-go hexagon, is that it says two and a half hexagon. Now for most of us that would be like, we
think in our brains, we think this way, and this is something I learned is that you measure
a hexagon by the side. And so the side of this is two and a half
and that's what makes this a two and a half hexagon. It actually finishes out at, let's see, this
is four and a half... Misty: But it's five point to point. Jenny: Oh point to point, okay. So five inches point to point and four and
a half on the side. So that's good to know because when you see
two and a half, you'll go [inaudible 00:23:51], because you think you're going to make tiny
ones, which would be really cute, right? Natalie: Probably not harder, I'm sure it's
fine. Misty: It's just smaller, right? You know me, I love tiny's. Natalie: I can't wait for that project. Misty: I want to make it. Jenny: So we hope you enjoyed this tutorial
on the quilt-as-you-go hexagon from Daisy & Grace with Missouri Star Quilt Company.
