QUILT AS YOU GO: Joining Our Stitch 'n' Flip Blocks With my Easy, Fully Machine Sewn QAYG Method!

today i'm going to show you how to join 36 blocks together quilted to go using my easy cover strip method my easy cover strip method is fully machine sewn and can be used on the front or back of a quilt with this quilt i'm going to put it on the back so there's no interruption between the blocks giving it a traditional look all these blocks are stitch and flip and quilt as you go you can use whatever blocks you like i have a playlist with all of these blocks so you can use them as a repetitive design or you can mix and match them to make your own quilt or if you have your own designs that you want to use this method is suitable for applique blocks or any blocks that don't have points that finish a quarter inch away from the edge if you have blocks like this you can easily add a border before you quilt and join the blocks just like i've done with this quilt here i've made many calls with this method in all different sizes and configurations you can check them out on our website we have lots of pdf patterns and even some ebooks so stick around and i'll show you how it's done [Music] good [Music] welcome back to pattern pool tv if you're new here i'm monica and every week my daughter and i make videos about how we make our kuda to go quilts so we're really excited today to join our 36 blocks together but first of all let's talk about the tools and the fabric that we're going to need to do this so you'll need your basic patchwork and quilting supplies so you need your cutting mat your ruler rotary cutter we're going to square up our blocks so if you've got a square ruler that'll be quite handy something that's around 10 inches this is my regular one which is 12 and a half inches if you don't have a square ruler a sheet of template plastic or some plastic that you can that's see-through and you can cut it with your scissors so i'm going to show you how to make up a template you'll also need a fabric marking pencil or texture this one here is a water-soluble fabric eraser i have to wipe this off with water before i iron it otherwise it could set with the iron they're quite good though but just be careful with that a 1 inch bias maker that's also the same as 25 millimeters optional fabric glue you'll need your scissors and for the cover strips just some regular width patchwork cotton quilting fabric i'm actually going to be using a pre-made bias so this one here is 100 cotton and you can see that the raw edges meet on the center back like that so that's fine to use avoid using thin polyester pre-made bias where the edges don't meet on the back because they'll end up being see-through and you'll just see the seam through it so although we're using a 1 inch or 25 millimeter bias maker the strips don't have to be cut on the bias grain they can be cut across the fabric from selvage to selvage mine are only on the bias because i'm just using this pre-made bias and if you join in with our free quilter to go along the requirements list is on our blog post and if you're using this method to make your own quilt it's just a matter of putting pen to paper and working out how many strips of fabric you're going to need to cover all of your raw seams so here's an example of how you would work out how much fabric you need for your cover strips draw up your quilt plan let's say for instance our blocks are going to be 10 inches so we've got six blocks across so 10 times 6 is 60 inches and we've got 6 blocks down so 10 times 6 is also 60 inches now work out how many strips or how many seams are actually going to be covered with a cover strip so we've got one two three four five so five multiplied by 60 equals 300 inches and then the same this way so one two three four five so same thing five times 60 inches equals 300 inches so let's add that up that's going to be 600 inches that's how much fabric we're going to need or the length of our cover strips so now our cover strips are cut across the fabric from selvage to selvage and your regular width fabric is about 42 inches to 44 inches so i like to work it out on 40 inches this allows for my selvedges and a little bit of trimming so we're going to say 600 divided by 40 and that equals 15. so we basically are going to need 15 strips of fabric to give us the 600 inches so our strips are 2 inches wide so 15 multiplied by 2 equals 30 inches and then from there i like to add an extra strip so i'm going to add an extra 2 inches onto that so that's going to be 32 inches and then what i do is i get my tape measure and i'll say okay so here's 32 and i think i might just round that up to 36 inches so that is actually a yard of fabric and if you are in a country where we use metric just flip the tape measure over and you could say 90 centimeters so that's the amount of fabric that you're going to need to make all of your cover strips now with our quilt that we're making our how cool as you go along quilt we're actually going to add a picket edge around and the raw seam of the picket edge is covered up with a cover strip so i just need to work out how much fabric i need to go all the way around the edge so i've got 60 inches so one two three four so working out down here four multiplied by 60 inches equals 240 inches divided by 40 inches which is the width of our fabric and that will give me six so i'm going to need six two inch strips so i say six multiply by two inches equals 12 inches and i always like to add that extra strip so an extra 2 inches so plus 2 inches equals 14 inches so once again i just grab my tape measure and here's 14 inches here you may want to just take it up to 18 inches and make it half a yard or flip it over to the other side 45 centimeters so now i'm going to show you how to make your cover strips fold your fabric over with the selvage edges aligned and then fold it in half again so that the folded edge is nice and level with our selvage edge this just makes it a little bit easier to cut line up the folded edge on your cutting mat just move the raw fabric end over so that it's going to be a little bit past the marked line there for the line on our cutting mat align the line on the cutting mat with your ruler and trim off the edge and now we're going to cut some strips that are two inches wide so for this quilt we need to cut 15 2 inch wide strips but for today's demonstration i'm just going to cut two open out your strips and make sure that they're nice and straight so some strips you're going to need to join because the seam is too long so to join them what you'll do is place one strip on your cutting mat with the right side facing up in a horizontal direction then place your next strip on top with the right side facing down in a vertical direction so just have the selvage extending past each other there and then if you mark a diagonal line that goes from the inside corner to the outer corner like that then you can head to the machine and stitch on that marked line so when you open that up you'll see that it goes in a nice straight line so trim back to a quarter inch seam allowance and press the seam open and trim away the excess corners okay so this is how you use a bias maker first of all we're going to cut the end of a strip to a little point like this and then we're going to with the wrong side of the fabric facing up we're going to thread it through the bias maker like this use a little pin to help slide it out like that okay so i like to just first of all iron the end so i'm folding those ends in well the edges are folding over and meeting just give that a little press i've actually got my iron set on steam at the moment which is totally fine when you're making bias and now what i like to do is hold my bias maker up on a 45 degree angle i slide it along like that and then i bring the iron on to it and i work in 10 centimeter or four inch lengths at a time and this is how we maneuver over a seam pull out like that double check that your seams are still facing in and then just press that little bit manually and away we go again and an extra tip is our strip is going to have a little bit of stretch in it because it's cut across the grain so it's going to stretch while you're sewing it anyway so just pull on that and give it a really good stretch from the front just to remove any excess stretch if you did this on a 45 degree angle don't do the extra stretch it might just stretch forever what do you mean by 45 degree angle um if somebody cut their fabric on the 45 degree the buy screen that little extra stretching tip is actually not if you did for instance cut your fabric on the bias grain i do recommend cutting across from selvage to selvage there really is no need to cut your fabric on the bias grain it will just stretch too much so roll your bias up on a cardboard roll are you waiting to use it innovative it is [Music] before we join our blocks together we need to trim them these blocks all started off at 10 inches square and we cut the batting half an inch smaller all the way around the edge this is to reduce the bulk in the seam allowance the half inch gap allows for a bit of shrinkage a bit of shifting and a little bit of trimming when i stitch and flip the blocks they shrunk in slightly by about an eighth of an inch so i'm going to trim them all back to nine and three quarter inches square so if you have a square ruler you can place it on top and using the lines on the ruler trim an even amount away from the edge of each block making sure that everything is as centered and as straight as possible i normally trim up the side and across the top and then rotate the block and position my nine and three quarter inch line on the straight side and bottom edge and then trim the remaining edges so this is now going to leave me with a 3 8 of an inch gap of batting and it's okay if this is not exact and some of the batting gets caught in the seam it's just really good to not have the batting go all the way through the seam which will make the seam bulky if you don't have a square ruler you can make a square ruler using some template plastic to make a nine and three quarter inch square start with a straight corner of the template plastic using a fine tip permanent marker measure and mark nine and three quarter inches from the side and across the top make sure the lines are nice and straight and then mark diagonal lines from corner to corner and mark your center vertical and horizontal lines now cut out with some scissors but don't use your good fabric scissors make sure that the marker is dry before using the template on your fabric i'm going to start off by trimming the center blocks as i want to make sure that the side corners of the star line up from block to block so to do this i place my template on top and i made a mark at the side corners of the stars i double checked that it was the same on all of them i was then able to easily line that mark up at the star corners and mark around my template once i marked around the template i was then able to use a ruler to cut the edges straight if you don't have a square ruler you can use your regular patchwork ruler please don't use a rotary cutter with a thin template as you could easily slip and cut your finger i cut all my center blocks in the same way and that way i could be happy with the fact that i knew that they were all going to line up those corners so i also marked some extra lines around the edge of my template using my permanent marker i marked the first line which is an inch and an eighth away from the edge and i did this on all four sides and then i came back and marked another line that was one and three eighths of an inch away from the edge on all four sides that actually helped me when i was cutting out blocks like the tree block i was able to line up the inner marked line with the border seam line just line it up as best as you can it might not be perfect but that will be fine and you will see that we'll be trimming an even amount off around the edge of each block so for the retro flower block i was able to use the outer marked line to line up on the border seam line so go ahead and trim all of your blocks ready to join together so before i start to join my blocks together i've already jumped ahead and i've joined the top section of my quilt together now what i'm going to do is i've got two rows left to join i'm going to show you how i join those together so in my last video i worked on every row separately and then i sewed on the cover strips and then i joined those rows together but i'm always working on how i do things i like to perfect my methods all the time so this time what i'm going to do is i'm going to join my rows together separately then i'm going to join two rows together before i start sewing on the cover strips so let's get started and i'll show you how i'm going to do that okay so i have my row of blocks lined up ready to join together and i have my machine all set up with a neutral color thread top and bottom and i'm just using my standard foot you can actually use your walking foot if you want to but the seam allowance is three-eighths of an inch or one centimeter and you'll see why when we go to press them that wider seam always sits nice and flat and open and it's also the reason why we say it doesn't really suit blocks where the points finish a quarter inch away from the edge but as we said you can add a border around the edge just to overcome that problem and i'm using a stitch length of 3 and a size 80 quilting needle so let's get started so take your first two blocks and place them with the right sides facing you can pin them if you like but if you feel confident enough you can just sew them and we're just going to sew them with our 1 centimeter or 3 8 of an inch seam allowance and make sure you do a little reverse stitch at the beginning and at the end so that our rows of stitching are nice and secure [Music] so make sure you don't get confused and make sure that all your blocks end up facing the correct way and another tip is when you're sewing even if you feel that your foot wants to kind of push away because we've got the ridges that are formed by the batting try and stay on that one centimeter seam allowance as best as possible that's quite important to do and it's totally fine if some of the batting is caught in the seam and that's why we use a nice flat low loft batting [Music] so there's one row and now i'm going to join my next row together just in the same way i actually have it all facing the right way so i don't get confused which i feel like i'm confused already all right so this time what i'm gonna do so work out your own procedure and how you want to join them together um there's no room or reason to it just whatever works for you so this time i think i'm going to work them in pairs just so that i don't lose where i'm up to [Music] so here's another tip when you've got to sew two blocks together just stretch on the edge of each block and the one that doesn't stretch put that one on top because that's going to stabilize our underneath stretchy block and it means that instead of sewing with the stretchy block on top where it ends up being a little bit too long as i said the top one the non-stretchy one is going to stabilize the stretchy one to summarize just so with the non-stretchy one on top because that's going to stabilize the stretchy one that's underneath [Music] bird on that side same on that side which one's your favorite block the bird why oh it's just really pretty what's your favorite book flower i hate the one you wanted one dusty looking iron so now you can see our blocks look nice and neat on the front and on the back we have our raw seam that we're now going to press open and nice and flat and i'm going to join that onto the other row before we start applying the cover strips [Music] so now even if we have a little bit of the batting caught in the seam that's totally fine and it just means that it's great not having the batting going all the way through the seam allowance because it just does reduce that bulk in the seam so in the last video i applied the cover strips over the raw seams at this stage but in this video what i'm going to do is i'm actually going to join the two rows together so i'm going to take them and i'm going to put them right sides together and i'm just going to pin and make sure that all of those seams line up and then i'm going to sew my seam press it open before i start applying the cover strips here's another tip just before you pin trim any unlevel edges so that they're nice and level before we start joining our two edges together nice so here are my two rows right sides together and i just want to pin those seams so they're going to line up exactly so just pop your pin in about a quarter of an inch away from the edge in the stitching line or right in the center of that seam and then do the same on the underneath piece squeeze those two edges together just double check that it's actually coming through yep that's right and then bring it down and back up through the stitching line again so they're going to line up exactly [Music] okay so now just sew the two rows together so if sometimes it seems like the fabric is too big on top you can either just hold it from behind like that or use a tailor's all to help ease the top fabric so that it fits against the bottom fabric and very carefully sew across the pins or slide them out before you get to them [Music] [Music] yep as i sew yep and when it gets to a point if it seems like i need to ease i just use the cordless or [Music] [Music] now press the seam open of the long join now the reason why i decided to join two rows together is because these are only small blocks so if i was making a quilt that had large blocks i would probably still just stick with joining one row together at a time [Music] [Music] so now what's going to happen is we're going to stitch these cover strips on to cover up the raw seam but to make sure that they are sewn on perfectly straight and even i'm going to mark a line that is positioned half an inch away from the seam on both sides of the seam so i'm using this blue wash out marker because i wanted something that would show up in the camera and so i could easily see it myself it's really important that these lines are actually nice and accurate and the reason for that is that we want these stitching lines to line up from row to row and when you're marking always angle your marker in towards the ruler so that the line doesn't grow so i'm going to mark this line onto every seam now [Music] [Music] so the next bit is that we want our cover strips to start half inch away from the beginning and a half inch away from the end and this reduces the bulk in the across waist seams and a lot of people find that a bit unusual to begin with but you'll see that by the time you sew the seam press the seam open and apply the cover strip the end of that cover strip is actually covered but another thing that you need to consider is how do you want to finish off the edge of your quilt so if you do want to just finish it here and put a binding on it make your cover strip go all the way to the outer edge of the quilt but if you want to add a border say for instance using this same technique start the cover strip half an inch away from the edge but if you want to do a border using my easy border technique you can also make the cover strip go all the way to the edge so it's just a matter of thinking about what you want to do we're actually finishing our quilt with the picket border the same way that we did with our cherry cheek quilt that's our little pointy edge so i am going to finish my cover strip half inch away from the edge to do that i'm going to actually mark half inch away from the edge just that i don't forget so now i'm just going to sew my cover strip on and i'm going to start it where my half inch mark is and you can see i'm just going to position it in the center of my marked lines finishing half an inch away from the edge now if you want you can actually hold this in place with some fusible web like i have done in this video here which i'll put a link in the description for you to see i've also done this where i've used some fabric glue to hold it in place but you know what recently i've just found that it's really easy just to hold it in place and sew i'm going to show you how i do that now that's our ryan don't worry about that [Music] i just said to a laura don't get my little needle stash in um i don't know why i keep them i probably should throw them out if they're blunt put them in my little sharps container i think it's a good spot it is it's built for it it is it's magnetic too is it yeah that's why they will stay there that's why maybe it's meant for that that's why i'm tempted to put them there just like magic it is to sew the cover strips on i'm going to use an edge stitching foot some of you may have a stitch in the ditch attachment that goes with your walking foot you can use that if you like i'm just going to use my edge stitching foot and what i do is i just move my needle position over so that the distance from the guide to the cover strip it gives me about a two millimeter or a 1 16 of an inch space so i don't have to worry about watching where i'm sewing i just line up the guide and i just sew away it makes it very very easy to do also when it comes to the thread try and choose a thread that is going to blend in with all of your fabrics i've just kind of chosen this motley variegated thread to tie in and it looks quite good with the fabric on the back and also the fabric on the front okay so now i'm just moving my needle position over so that i've got that distance there and when i start to sew i want to start and finish with a little reverse stitch which is very close to the beginning and the end and those little reverse stitches will actually get caught into the seam so we won't see them on the top of the quilt and it won't look messy so and then i'm just going to hold my cover strip in place in between my marked lines and i'm just going to sew and another thing is that i've got my work rolled up ready to start sewing and i'm going to show you my process and how i sew on these cover strips and also i forgot to mention that i have a stitch length of three [Music] sometimes i cut my cover strips to length this time i'm just going to cut them as i go [Music] so i'll roll up this side and unroll this side here so i'm going to sew all the way down one side of my cover strip and then i'll turn it around and come back the other way [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so this is what it looks like from the back so far we have our raw seams covered this way we've still got our raw seams exposed here so we've got to sew our cover strip on there but this is what it looks like from the front so those stitching lines that attach the tram they just end up looking like stitching lines that are sewn half inch away from the seam on the front of the quilt so now we're going to prepare to sew our a crossway strip on and i'm just going to mark that line that is half inch away from the seam on both sides of the center of the scene [Music] so now back at the machine and sewing our crossways cover strip on just in the same way so it's just a matter of sewing a little bit adjust sew a little bit and adjust and just make sure that your quilt can freely move through the machine just to give you a consistent stitch length and scrape any frayed edges under the cover strip and now i'm just turning around so i can sew down the other side so here's another tip this is how i hold my quilt to help maneuver it through i'll just put one hand underneath like this and then i hold it straight with the other hand so as i mentioned the stitching lines just look like quilting lines sewn half inch away from the seam on the front of the quilt and this is what it looks like from the back so with this quilt i just used fabrics from my stash so i really didn't plan anything out for the back but if you really did play it you could make this quilt reversible too okay so that's the process on how you join two rows together so with this quilt you're going to repeat this process three times so we're going to have our three separate sections which will then join together so as i mentioned i've already joined two sections together so now all i have to do is join this section on to complete my quilt okay so i've laid my sections out and i just wanted to point out that what we really need to line up now are our seams and also the stitching lines and also just these little knotty bits here where we did our reverse at the beginning at the end they will actually get hidden in the seam so now pin the seams in the same way we want our seams to definitely line up so just like that but what i'm also going to do is pin my stitching lines you could just wing it but i want to make sure it's going to line up perfectly so i pin through my stitching line and through my stitching line on this side and pinning back through like that just double checking that it's all lined up so i'm actually doing three pins on each seam and i'm going to pin every seam the same [Music] so all pinned together and now it's just a matter of sewing that one centimeter or three eighths of an inch seam again [Music] very carefully sew across the pins or slide them out just before you get to them [Music] [Music] so open out and double check that all of your seams and stitching lines are lining up as best as they can and if everything's okay press the seam open [Music] so here you can see where we finished that cover strip half inch away from the edge that it's going to be hidden and covered underneath our cover strip that goes across ways so mark up the half inch lines and sew on the cover strip in the same way [Music] so i did at the beginning of this video i mentioned some fabric glue so you can actually use some fabric glue to hold the cover strips in place i have also in the past used fusible web so i do have some other videos showing quilts where i've made using glue and fusible web so i'll get a laura to put some little cards on the screen so that you can click on those videos and check out how i did that so it's all about working out the way that you feel comfortable in sewing on the cover strips so i'm just gonna head to the machine and get our last strip sewn on but before i do that i'm going to roll the quilt up so this is my big edge here and i'm actually going to roll this up and that's going to help it to slide through the machine as i sew the strip on so i'm just going to continue holding my cover strip in place while i sew and as your quilt grows it's just about making sure that you're holding it in a way that it can easily maneuver through the sewing machine without you know it pulling on it and so it's just a matter of making sure that it can freely move through the sewing machine without um it being restricted so that's when your stitches end up looking small so we want to try and have a consistent stitch length so i use my left hand to hold the cover strip in place and my right hand is underneath the quilt holding the weight of it so that it can move through freely just give it a little hand as it goes over these the bumps of the seam just working a little bit at a time [Music] [Music] and you also use your taylor saw i do in places where there's threads that are poking out or if i just need to hold it nice and straight in place definitely so like if i was gonna make my first quilt i would probably glue it down yeah i think so i think so although try working the smaller sections without glue because it actually is isn't that hard at all do you want to go yeah all right come on over here then oh okay so [Music] not that hard well i just think that you make everything look really easy all the time that's true because i've been doing it for so long [Music] i know okay ready i'm going to go over a bump all right this is the real test take it slow oh i'm a little bit hooked are you all good watch out everybody elora could be making her first quilt pretty soon is my sewing good come check it very good great that could be our next video elora makes a quilt [Music] very good very nice nice and straight you stayed on track see that guide makes it really easy doesn't it yeah yeah okay so now to sew the other side so we're just spinning it i like to keep it rolled up because it just makes it easier to move through your machine rather than the weight of the machine dragging on the table and then i also like to roll up the inside edge to get away i was being strangled by bias and you'll always find that it's the holding it on and sewing the first side which is the trickier side which really wasn't that tricky was it and the second side always just sews so easily without a problem okay i'm gonna scrape my few little threads underneath use your all your scissors and away we go [Music] [Music] and here's our quilt all joined together this is what it looks like from the back and i just used all different fabrics on the back i actually just um winged it and i'm really happy with how that looks it's so cute and colorful and this is what it looks like on the front so when you're doing a quilt together if you like you can put the cover strips on the front some people have done that be aware though that you will have less of the block showing on the front but that's totally fine it's just a completely different look and we'll be back in our next video showing how i'm going to do the picket edge around it and that's just going to finish this code off and look really cute but don't forget what i said was if you just want to finish your quilt off with a binding make sure that your cover strips go all the way to the outer edges and you can finish it off with a normal binding and and then you're finished so thanks for watching everyone and we'll see you next time bye [Music] there's my part got a little bit jagged but it still looks good and it looks totally fine there's so much to look at in this quilt that if something's not perfectly straight you know nobody's going to notice it as i said there's just so much going on so much to look at i think i want to make a quilt okay let's do it

Channel: Pattern Poole TV

Views: 44,613

Keywords: how to quilt as you go, quilt as you go beginner block, pattern poole, monica poole quilt as you go, easy quilt blocks for beginners, easy quilt blocks that look difficult, how to make a quilt for beginners, your first quilt, beginner quilt pattern, how to quilt on a regular sewing machine, how to quilt as you go a large quilt, quilt as you go for beginners, how to quilt on a domestic machine, how to make a quilt from start to finish, free quilt patterns, stitch and flip quilt

Id: Comx-UlTemU

Length: 46min 26sec (2786 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 07 2021