Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC.
And I am really excited about today’s project. Let me show you the inspiration for this.
This is an antique block that I actually bought on eBay and I just thought it was so beautiful.
And so I bought this block and I thought how can we create this easily. It looks like a
lot of work, right? Well, you’re going to see how easy this is to put together. The
fun part about this block, this is the block we’re going to make right here is how it
fits into this quilt and what happens when they come together. So let’s take a look
at this quilt behind me. Isn’t this fun? I’m calling this Antique Lace because of
my antique block and to me, it just looks lacy. It just has a really pretty look to
it. So this is our block right here. But what happens when they come together is it forms
this secondary block right here which I love it when that happens. And that’s one of
my favorite things, what happens when you put two blocks together. It makes it really
fun. So to make this quilt what you’re going
to need is one roll of 2 ½ inch strips and we have used this beautiful Fiorella line
by RJR Studio. And actually, you’re not even going to need a roll. You’re going
to need 18 of these. It takes two strips to make each block. And that’s what we’re
talking about. You’re also going to need some background yardage. The reason we went
with background yardage versus a roll is you need some three-inch strips and some 2 ½
inch strips. And you’re going to need 3 ¾ yards on that. That’s going to include
this border right here and all the pieces you need to make this. Your outer border out
here is a nice five-inch border. And you’re going to need 1 ¼ yard. For your backing,
you’re going to need 4 ½ yards. And look at this backing. This is really fun. I’d
like to make myself a shirt out of that. I think it’s really pretty. So 4 ½ yards
of that. The quilt is a 73 by 73 quilt so it’s a nice big square quilt. Now the reason
I stopped at 18 strips is because these blocks come out really big. And so I have, I’m
kind of locked into this space here. You know, I don’t want to make anything too huge and
too big. And so feel free to make it bigger if you want. And just know that it takes two
strips to make a block. So this block looks like it’s a hard block and it’s not a
hard block. It is a little bit more work because you have to pay attention and you have to
do a few more cuts and things like that. But we’re going to break it down for you. And
you’re going to go, oh I can do that. And because this was so fun for me I just hope
it’s fun for you as well. So the first thing we’re going to do is
we’re going to take our 2 ½ inch strip right here and we’re going to sew it to
a 2 ½ inch background strip. So you’re going to cut some 2 ½ inch strips off your
background piece. And we’re just going to sew right along the edges like. Put them right
sides together like this. And we’re going to make a tube. We’re going to sew a quarter
of an inch on this side and a quarter of an inch on that side. So let’s go to the sewing
machine and do that. So we’re going to line these up. And you want to keep them pretty
lined up and you want to keep your quarter of an inch pretty close. Once you get them
lined up it’s pretty easy to just sail down. Alright. Oop, I’m getting off a little bit.
I’m going to correct here. There we go. Alrighty. Now I’m going to flip it around
and I’m going to sew again a quarter of an inch right down the other side. Right here.
Here we go. And this is a real easy side because you’ve already got one sewn down. And you
just let her go. Alrighty. Alright now, what we’re going to do is we’re
going to cut some triangles out of this. Now I’ve shown you a ton of ways to make half
square triangles and this is just one more. So right now we’re going to use our strip
right here, this 2 ½ of a print, 2 ½ of a background. And we’re going to use our
clearly slotted perfect trimmer. So that comes with these two sizes. And the reason I did
this is because I wanted to make. I wanted no waste. So I looked on here to see, you
know I was thinking about doing it all 2 ½ and I looked on here like this and it just
felt like too much waste up here for me. So I decided to go with a three inch half square
triangle. So what you do with the trimmer like this is you’re going to line up your
stitch line on their stitch line and we’re going to cut on both sides. Let me show you
how this works. So we’re going to cut this way and this way. And you can see I barely
got a stitch on the top. And when I open these up it makes a half square triangle. Now the
reason we sew on both sides is because you can then just flip your ruler like this and
make sure your seam line is lined up on their seam line and you just go ahead and cut. You’re
going to flip and cut. And you’re just going to do this to both of your strips because
you need 32 half square triangles to make this. So I actually got so good and so comfortable,
I guess I should say so comfortable at making these that I actually stacked my, my strips
on top of each other and cut out two at a time. Now if you do that you just want to
make sure that your seam lines are pretty accurate so that they come out the same size.
If they’re not coming out the same size you’ll have to square them. But if, you
know, if you get them pretty well lined up they should be able to just come out like
this. So let’s iron a few of these and see what we’re looking at here. So I’m just
going to press these open like this. And you’re, again you’re going to need 32 of these.
And that takes pretty much your two strips. Alright. So once you get that done and I actually made
these a block at a time. So I made, I did, I did my two strips, I cut out all the half
square triangles and I put them, I ironed them all and put them in a stack. And then
I started making units. Now when you look at a pattern, one of the things that was always
confusing to me as a new quilter is that they’ll say, this block and then you need this unit
to make this block. A unit is a couple of pieces that you’ve sewn together. And when
you add it to the other pieces it becomes a block. So we have a few units in this block.
The first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to take four of our half square triangles
and we’re going to make a pinwheel for the center. So let me grab those right here. So
here’s my four. They measure at three inches. And I’m going to put them together here,
let me show you. I was just going to go sew those together and not even show you how.
Now when you make a pinwheel, let me scoot this over here. When you make a pinwheel what
you’re going to do, is again, all your seams are going to go to the center. And you want
them to be light, dark, light, dark, light, dark, light, dark. So for each block, you
need four half square triangles like this. And you’re going to make your center pinwheel.
So let’s sew that together. And again this isn’t harder, it just takes a little bit
more time. And my gosh I love the outcome. I just think it’s so fun to see this. This
pretty quilt. It looks so lacy to me. Alright, here we go. Now we’re going to look at these
and make sure they’re going the right direction. And if they are we can just tuck them together
which we’re going to do. Nest up our center seam. Now if you want to clip off these little
dog ears you can. That’s pretty easy. I actually probably do that before I sewed that
center seam. As long as it lays flat I don’t worry about those. But we’re going to do,
we’re going to press this nice. Give it a good steaming, pressing, make it lay nice
and flat. And we’re going to set this aside now. Alright, so the next one we’re going to
do is we need to take and make this unit right here. So this is the unit I’m talking about
that we’re going to make like this. So to do that we’re going to sew four sets of
these two half square triangles right here. And let me show you where these go on this
block. I’m going to move this one down here for now. So these are the pieces right here
that we’re talking about. These center blocks right here. We’re going to make this corner
block as a whole. So we’re going to make this unit right here. To do that we’re going
to take two of our half square triangles and sew them white sides together like this. Alrighty.
Now because these are three-inch half square triangles all of our other pieces have to
be three inches for this to go. So that’s why we went with the background fabric. Because
you do need some 2 ½ but you also need some threes. So then we’re going to cut, this
is going to be 5 ½ and we’re going to cut a three by 5 ½ piece to put on either side
like this, alright? So we’re just going to sew those on a quarter of an inch. And
we’re going to snug that up, there we go. And we’re going to put one on each side
top and bottom. And so you can’t really get this wrong. I’m going to make sure this
one works. Alright. Now I’m going to press this open right here. And you’re going to
do that four times. So you’re going to make four of those. So I’ve done this one and
I have my other three right here and I’m going to set those aside. Now we’re going to do these corner blocks.
And this is the corner block right here we’re talking about, this block right here. And,
and so to make that you do have to pay attention to this one. So you’re going to want to
look at the diagram and you’re going to make sure they go. It’s not harder you just
have to pay a little closer attention. So for this, we’re going to need five of our
half square triangles and we’re going to make four of these blocks as well. So our
half square triangles, we want to make them exactly the same way. Every block gets made
the same way. And then when we put it together we turn it. So what we’re going to do is
we’re going to line these up. And I’m looking at this to make sure it’s exactly
right. And we need some three-inch squares for the middle. So we’re going to cut our
three inches, you know our background. We’re going to cut two of those for our block, we’re
going to need eight three by 5 ½ and we’re going to need a bunch of these, a bunch of
these. So we’ve got, let see, one, two, three, four, times four, 16 of these three-inch
squares out of these strips right here. So we’ll cut some strips and we’ll cut them
into squares. So then this center right here is two whites and our triangle is pointing
up. And then here we have a triangle that is facing down and a plain white square. And
the other triangle is facing in. So you’re going to make all four of your corner blocks
identical. So let’s go ahead and sew this together. And what I’m going to do is I’m just going
to take this row by row over here because this is really easy. This is the part where
I get mixed up. So I have to make sure I do it a little at a time until it makes sense
to me. So I open this back up and I’m going to add this one on this side. There’s our
first row. Our next row we just have to remember that our little half square triangle points
up to the left. And we’re going to put a white block on either side like this. And
then one more on this side. Lay that down and then our third row, the two triangles
actually face into that center square so that’s easy to remember. So this one goes in like
this. And then this one goes in like that. And I’m checking to make sure. I can’t
even tell you how many times I looked up at that empty block to make sure that I had it
going the right way. It is one you have to pay attention to. So now you have these three
rows and we’re going to sew this block together. And I’m going to do that before I press
it because I can make my seams go the way I want to. And I’m just going to lay these
together. Take a few anchoring stitches and then nest that first seam. I’m going to
make my center block on the bottom point in and the top block will point out. And by point
I mean the seams will lay out and the bottom one will lay in.
And our last row right here goes on this way. And I’m just going to set that in there.
Do my little anchoring stitches. And make sure this is going the same way as I had it
on the top which is, there we go. I just want to make sure my seam is laying the same way.
Alright, now we’re going to press this. And then I”m going to show you how this
lays together because I’ve already sewn the other four of these together. And it’s
really fun to see how this comes together because every time I did it it was like, oh
there it is. You know you see it. Alright, I’m going to move some of these things right
here for you because these are big blocks. Alright here’s our center block. I always
like to work from the center out. And so here’s our center. And we’re going to put two of
these on either side of our center. And these have to be pointing, the white is point toward
the middle. So we’re going to line those up like this. And then we’re going to put
them this way as well so they’re all pointing toward the center like this and this. These
then go into the corner. When you put these into the corner, this corner block right here
that is sticking out by itself, it always goes toward the corner. So you’re going
to turn every block so that it goes into the corner like this, like this and like this.
One of the camera guys just noticed that this row is flipped. So I’m going to take that
off with my seam ripper and I will be right back. So what I did here on the bottom row
and, and this is important because these things happen, right? And so what I did on the bottom
row was when I sewed it together I actually flipped the row over. So what I’m going
to do now that I, we call it frog sewing because it’s rip it, rip it, rip it. We’re going
to actually press our seam back open so it will lay nice. And we’re going to pretend
that there aren’t any stitch holes in there. And we’re going to sew it again. And so
this one right here then I know I have to do it this way. So see the difference is,
it’s very subtle but it’s going to change the whole pattern. Well, this could be a whole
new quilt pattern. But we’re going to do this one today. And we’re going to sew it
on this side. So let me sew that back together for you. And I’m going to line up these
rows just like that. We’re going to press it open and we’re going to look at it one
more time. And you guys on the camera, you pay attention because that was a big help
to me. Alright here we go, right here. Oop no wait. This one goes in. There we go. So
the crucial part about this one being turned the right way is this makes the secondary
pinwheel block out here. So what we’re going to do now is we’re going to sew these rows
together like this. I’m going to sew one of these squares to either side. And how I
remember how they go is I put this square right next to my white one. It turns in just
like that. Ok so I fixed my block and I sewed those two
blocks to this center unit right here, making sure that my corner blocks turn in on both
sides. So I’ve got my rows done. Now I just have to sew my two rows to my center block.
So I’m going to lay that over here. I’m going to go to the sewing machine and do that
and I’ll meet you right back here. So I’ve got my rows sewn together. Now we’re going
to press it open. Doesn’t that look pretty. So pretty. It’s so worth it you guys. Just
a little more work but so worth it to make something like this. So here’s your block.
And one of the things I love about these kind of blocks is you actually have a checkpoint
at every seam to make sure you’re still lined up so nothing gets really out of whack.
You know sometimes when you sew a long strip you’re like, whoa, wait what happened, how
come I have so much more down here. You won’t have that when you sew these things together.
If you line up at every single junction. Ok so let me show you how these go together.
I have four blocks made now that I’ve made this one. And we’re going to put them together.
And there’s things you want to watch for to make sure you’ve got your blocks going
in the same direction. You’re going to have a flying geese right here that lines up. Actually
let me put these other ones on here. These are big blocks. So it’s really fun. Alright,
let me see here. Ok. I’ll just take this off for a minute so you can see this right
here. Alright. So things you want to look at when you’re laying these together is
they just go straight together like normal blocks but you want to make sure they pinwheel.
And you want to make sure that these, you have these flying geese on all four sides.
That they line up in a geese formation. I had one block set in here when I had them
on my design wall that was turned. And I was like, wait something doesn’t look, you know.
And you’ll notice that. So just, just go ahead and turn it. But you’ll notice that
these blocks are all set going exactly the same direction. So you’re going to sew three
together like this. And another row, three rows of three. That gives you nine blocks
and it gives you this awesome looking quilt back here and every time the secondary block
shows up there’s that sweet little pinwheel right in the center of it. And it makes another
square right around it which I just love. So I hope you’ll take a chance on this one
and I hope you enjoyed this Antique Lace tutorial from the MSQC.
