Quilting For Beginners | Craft Academy

[Music] [Applause] hello and welcome to craft Academy this is where we bring you a ssin advice hints on tips on some of the very best crafting that we do here out great and craft and the first one while the first section is evening is for beginners but it's very special because it's all about patchwork and quilting and it's bringing a lovely lady that you all know and love it's a journey arraignment hello generally don't happiness to have feel clearly and this is gonna be great because you're gonna be able to give us all your top tips and lots of ideas aren't you from rights from beginners as so many people are starting these days I'm wanting a new hobby and they want to launch into something completely different and their various things they shouldn't know their eyes and also many people do not know the basics so we're gonna go back to the basics we're gonna start off with beginners let's have a little look at what we're talking about so we're going to introduce it to you and explain a little bit more about what patchwork and quilting is your first lesson is cutting strips your second cutting squares less than three cutting half square triangles a lesson for cutting a quarter square triangles now that might all sound a little bit like trigonometry you might be thinking I haven't got a clue where to begin now that's our beginner section we're gonna get straight a gnat to Jenny now Jennie first of all some of the very useful things that are going to give you professional resource or of course the tools that make this easy folks if we just want to square a triangle that's quite difficult it is very much so and you do need I mean okay yes you can use a pair of scissors yes you can use cardboard to draw around yes you can use your old-school ruler but you will not get accuracy and one of the things in the patchwork world that we really appreciate is being accurate and if we just take a look at some of the beautiful quilts around us the patchwork and calls accuracy is going to be what you need to get these as you like get your points together professional results like we're seeing here now patchwork and quilting these are really a piece of heritage they're handed down through generations because you'll be making a quilt you could be making a quilt from memories from fabrics you've had perhaps in store from your children's clothes you could be making it someone's birthday and wedding anniversary you could just be making it to snuggle into but that things we lost and you're going to have it for a number of years and indeed we have heirloom quilts that are in the quilt archives that have been around for hundreds of years and who knows one of the ones that's made today might be one of those yeah absolutely so it's a good idea to also put your initials and a little bit magic name on the back would be fantastic now you can do something quite modern some contemporary designs here monochromatic therefore you could do rich colors of vintage styles the choice is yours entail this to your home but what gives the creativity are the shapes and the designs that pull it together and the precision of coats so there's a whole host of different templates that you can work with do this you're going to take us through some I'm going take this with the basics and some of the templates okay just take you that little bit further and what tools do we need right get started before you can begin you're obviously going to want fabric yes fabric comes in a variety of sizes it comes very often as fat quarters and sometimes you'll be lucky enough to buy a fat quarter pack it's all coordinating it's just lovely it makes it easy for so easy but what a fat quarter is is basically a an almost a square of fabric it's half a half yard of material okay so if you had a half yard of fabric it's cut in half there's something called a thin quarter which is a quarter of a yard that's right the way away so it's like that it's not that's your quarter thing that's your thin course it'll be twice the length so that's a thin caution yeah and there's a fat quarter that quarters are common okay but you might not have a fat quarter you might have something like a jelly roll and a jelly roll this is a two and a half inch strip very nothing edible nothing edible there are all sorts of other things there are layer cakes there are also trying to think of the name for it honey buns and things like that so there are lots of different ways of buying fabric that have set sizes or you could just buy yardage but that would help you if you just wanted to do something with streets it's much easier if you don't want to worry about cutting out the strips and indeed we have ten specifically designed to fit that size more fabric most people though are going to probably have yardage at some point in time and whether you've got yardage meterage call it what you will or whether you have fat quarters you're going to need to cut it and we'll come to tools in a moment the next thing you're probably going to want is some way of getting your quarter of an inch seam allowance because in the patchwork and quilting world we need a quarter of an inch seam allowance and you've got little tools so you can draw around you've got tape you can stick round that measures a quarter for an inch and you have a stick you can draw along the side of your possibly going to want a sewing machine I say possibly because you don't have to use a sewing machine you can do it all by hand but it's so dangerous beater to eat it up no end obviously your game to one thread and there's a wide variety of thread out there you might want invisible thread because sometimes when you're doing an applique and you're working across the range of colors invisible thread is good because you don't have to keep changing the thread you'll obviously it need pins you will need a selection of pens but for me the most important thing you're going to want is a rotary cutter yes now a rotary cutter consists of a very sharp blade be careful that rotates when you apply pressure this will give you an accurate cut in addition to the rotary cutter you're going to want some form of ruler and there are wide range of different rulers we'll talk about those in a moment and because you can't use the rotary cutter directly on a table or on the breadboard or something like that a cutting mat or self-healing cutting mat protect your work surface as well which will do that now when it comes to left-handed and right-handed there are a variety of cutters that you can change from left to right this one does right-handed left-handed easy-peasy but if you've got a cutter you sometimes you have to unscrew the blade and put it on the other side so we've got the cutter we've got the mat I've got some fabric I'm going to cut a strip okay when it comes to cutting a strip I mentioned rulers and there are wide range of rulers there is a little mini ruler close down my piece of card is bevel this little mini ruler measures a two and a half inch strip and it's worked out in measured out in eighths of an inch and sixteenths down the edge now that's fine it's small you might want to have a slightly wider ruler and this is a three and a half by nine and a half inch ruler it just makes life a little easier and it's lefty righty enabled you can use black numbers one side red numbers on the other because ensure is generally fabrics are yardage and a lot of our templates originate from America yes and so they tend to be more in inches yes I'm to me very much so and in fact the biggest driver in the patchwork world is America which is all feet ninja yes that's why absolutely tends to be an internship and okay you know like I'm out store and I like the inches but even if you're new school it's just numbers so it's looking at the numbers you've got the smaller ruler which is here which is a twelve and a half by six and a half great for taking two classes great for sort of you working in a smaller space or if you want you to have the ruler I would tend to start off with that is the Big Daddy where you've got 24 inches by six and a half inches again all marked out and there you see here this is the easy rule too now this is the one that most people with touch working calls same deal has because this gives you the length across your yard I'd like to close it yes so that's the top tip for that particular one right so we have the ruler we have the fabric I'm going to cut my first strip if you take your length of fabric even if you've got a fat quarter you want to fold it in half and line up the selvage so I'm lining up the selvage and when we talk about selvage this is the fabric insane and it will very often have little holes in it but I didn't even get the camera near enough to see the little holes that is the selvage down there and the little holes are where it was held onto the bolt of fabric when it won the loom when it was woven right I fold it in half once I need to fold it in half again and bringing the center fold to touch the selvages having got to this stage you'll need to trim the edge off now I am right-handed and to begin to trim the edge off I need to put the fabric on of the right hand okay taking my ruler see why this ruler is so useful is it fits across the fabric let's move those nice fat quarters out of the way I'm going to pop the ruler on the top there and level up this edge of the fabric with that side of the ruler I'm not looking at the cutting mat I'm simply working on the ruler bring the ruler as near as you can do to the raw edge of the material save fabric take the rotary cutter take the guard off the rotary cutter now this is most important you take the guard off at the beginning start your cutting a fraction before the beginning of material to a fraction before hand goes firmly on the ruler push the blade directly up the side of the ruler and keep on pushing keep on pushing until you come to the end this will give a threat again cut a thin strip right off your fabric okay having cut myself a nice straight end because I am right handed I'm going to turn the fabric round now you could if you wanted to walk to the other side of the table or you could turn the board round how do you turn the fabric round I'm going to cut from here a strip now you can cut your strip any size you like after the width of the ruler if you want you to cut a wider strip then that's when I would use the cutting mat I would bring the edge of the fabric to the edge of a she's got her inches and you just marches your interest all the way along the edge so if I wanted a 10 inch strip I could cut a 10 inch strip the main thing for having the fabric on my right because I am right handed and bringing the ruler in from the left if the ruler is now sitting on top of the piece of Apple yeah it's protecting it hand goes firmly on the ruler God comes off the cutter slide up the edge here movie hand up the ruler as you go and that stops having those funny little v-shaped Nick's you can get in the fabric okay that is a nice accuracy here that we have got how many inches the vision horn two and a half inch as you can see we've got two and a half inches across there and that will be parallel all the way down so you might see fabric and if I wanted a bigger one let's put that to one side I'm going to cut a four and a half inch one now so there is my fabric I'm keeping it like that the edge is still beautifully straight put the ruler on the top I want four and a half now on this particular ruler you've got your four and a half inch measurement is actually here yeah four and a half turn the rule around lay it on there see if four and a half inches goes right up the edge of the fabric there the ruler is now covering up four and a half inches hand firmly on the ruler guard off your cutter stop cutting a bit before now we haven't talked about safety when you get to the end there at that second before you raise the cutting you put the guard on you do not bring the cutter up think hmm why don't I put the blade cover the blade up now you do it a second your hand drops cutting handy tip and that will stop the accident happening once you've got your strip you can do a variety of things yeah so suppose I were to cut three strips let's move that out of the way if I cut three strips of fabric and join them together I could make myself a striped band and I've got three strips I happen to have used two and a half inch strips so these get stitched together on the sewing machine preferably with a quarter of an inch seam allowance and if you weren't sure about your quarter inch seam allowance you could use one of these tools to draw your seam allowance down the side to sell names or you could indulge in a quarter of an inch foot for your sewing machine some sewing machines do much they have the measurements on the metal plate doing that you can keep it lined up and most certainly do that or you can move the needle and set the needle at a quarter inch from this edge okay depending again on your machine on the model machine quarter inch would be nice but in the beginning just sewing as panelists strips to your Suman arts is no special thing that might be quite basic what color of throat which you use for that combination is there a guideline would you just use white or would say whatever many colors a sort of mid-tone I mean gray is one of the best threads to use it because it doesn't really have any set color I've got to use purple you know I would have a my choice row on the green I tend to also like to press my seams open and flat but these days sewing machines so with such a small stitch that actually it's not going to show even if you did use possibly not quite the right color thread but gray is a very good choice okay that's a good tip then having got my strips together if I wanted to make a very quick design take your strip band and your rotary cutting ruler put the road for cutting ruler on it and if you measure the width of the strip fan now technically it should measure six and a half inches because I cut two and a half inch strips I've taken off the seam allowance so it should be six your basics because each strip will actually be two inches when I've sewn it because we lose quarter-inch to this site and quarter minutes for that site so I've got three locks and you have three two and a half anyway yeah you Salvage off the end there mine does measure six in half but if you only measure six and a bit then you're going to cut six and a bit squares right turn the band round because I'm right-handed I'll tell you in the room what we enter if you're left-handed pop the ruler on the top I'm going to measure a six and a half inch square now my ruler happens to be six and half inches so I can come straight up there and I've got a nice square if I were to do this having a larger ruler B you can then cut larger pieces very easily because it's got automatically six and a half inches so you know you've always got a six inch square which is half a 12-inch square and many patchwork designs are based on six inches that's another reason why the large is a real tool is that is a worthwhile investment so that's number three and number four so I've got four squares and literally anybody can do this your seam allowance isn't correct just adjust the size of square in cut suit if we were to take these four squares we could lay them out very similarly and make a quick design that would work something like this perfect and there you have a very quick patchwork design that's wonderful and they could be stitched together extremely easily now that's cutting strips okay you might want to though cut squares okay let's move on to this one here and in the second section squares when it comes to cutting squares you have a variety of square rulers and I've got a whole load of them here we have a four and a half inch square I've got a six and a half inch square I've got a nine and a half inch square pop this down they're bigger and we've got the big daddy of them all the twelve and a half inch square now again Jenny if you were just beginning which would you recommend to go for because it can be confusing and you can't miss a thing in an ideal world I'd have the big one would you because many patchwork blocks are twelve and a half inches when raw edge to raw edge so it means you can square off a block to the correct size easily if I were a bit stuck for perhaps space then the nine and a half inch one might be a little bit better it's that little bit smaller and of course you can always measure using the square and add a ruler to increase the area you're working with the little ones are great for taking two classes I happen to use the four and a half inch one it's very frequently simply because there's a design that I teach that uses a four and a half inch square but it's not necessary because with any of the other squares you can cut any size of square you like so let's show them how to okay if you're going to cut squares let's take piece of fabric and I'm going to cut from this square fabric I don't know let's cut a five inch square okay open your fabric out take one of the square rulers and I'll use the big one because what you can cut with the big one you can cut with all of the others but it's also if you're not graduate it gives you all the gradient sizes lay the ruler onto the fabric if it's got a straight edge put the edge of the square on the straight edge that's fantastic I'm just going to trim off the side down here now I said five inches there on this side is my five inch shemagh written in red gets black over there trim off slightly more than the desired amount so I've cut it back to six inches it's nice and straight along there so I've got a right angle okay I'm now going to turn the fabric completely round so the fabric is on my right and the ruler is going to come in from my left and it sort of eats its way onto the fabric onto the fabric and it stops when it's five inches there and five inches there okay if I want to say a five and a half inch one I can move it over good etc and I will cut up this side and along the top now when it comes to rotary cutting you can cut across your body this way because should I slip I'm going to go that way and I'm not going to damage myself at no point in time do you ever want to cut towards yourself because this thing is sharp right there is a five inch square cut okay have you ever mentioned left-handed people suppose you are left-handed and you're really struggling if you're going to be left-handed you put the fabric like this and you will need to trim a corner of to suit so pop the ruler on top there get the rule up the right way around so there's my 1 there and I've got a fairly good right angle there so I'm not going to worry about trimming anything off but if I were game to cut it I cut up there and along the top okay flip the fabric round so this is for left-handed people the fabric is not sitting here and the ruler will eat its way in from this corner and it comes in and in and in and in until it's covering up the desired amount of fabric then you will pick up your rotary cutter you will cut up there and unload there so the tools are suitable for right-handed and left-handed people now if you were to cut say nine squares yeah we could create a very classic design called a nine patch which amazingly is made from nine squares so I've got nine squares all the same size I happen to have cut four and a half inch squares and I'm going to lay them out like this different color in the middle now this could be the front of the cushion cover it's a queenly be the front for cushion cover and this is sort of first baby steps into patchwork okay there are your nine squares now in an ideal world you would sew these together using a quarter inch seam allowance but as they're all the same shape it wouldn't matter if your seam allowance was not correct as long as it was consistent you might end up with a slightly smaller or a slightly bigger buck so then you should have that but it doesn't matter okay so I want to ask you where do you start to sew and how would you say would you sew all on one line like that I would actually say oh I just thought I sew them together into two into two and join that pair to that pair right because we like in the patchwork world to match up your seams right and that will give me an easy seam Junction right I will then join those two together and put it on the end because in fact that's the same seam junction there as that one is you've then got one row of three and when you fitted those together you fit that on the bottom of it and you'd have to line up that lot of seams and that lot of seams okay now when you've done your piecing together you're going to end up with a square that'll look something like this okay perfectly plain square of fabric now your seams again I like to press open and flat because I think you get a clearer Junction and it makes it a little bit easier for when you're doing any quilting because it lies a little flatter a very quick eye design you could do with this is something called a disappearing nine-patch and let me show you a disappearing nine-patch there we have a disappearing nine-patch if you'd like to get it out okay and vibrant this is something that real beginners could easily easily do now it's compared composed of blocks and the block is actually this square this it's that area there now this you create with clever cutting of what we've got let's go hey what I'm going to do okay right now let's show you let's make this darling if she was the cycle and this because you look at that I would look at that and think that's a bit too complicated for me to start off with but you're going to show us how easy exactly with this format what you want to do is to measure the size of the square that's been stitched on both sides so let me turn my rule around the right way minam Aiza you measures 4 inches yours may not whatever it may be is divide that measurement into so 4 divided by 2 is 2 inches put your ruler and I'm lining up the ruler so that my ruler is positioned exactly in the center of these squares the measurement here and the measurement there being the same God off your cutter cut up the middle now leave the block as it is don't move it turn the rule around the other way replace the ruler and make the same cut so what I've done now is I've just cut my block into 4 okay and all I'm going to do to create that design is turn one of those round and the other and there is very complex design yes that's amazing I'm so easy it's called a disappearing nine-patch and you can see exactly why because there has my 9-patch make you two cuts and hey presto it somewhere you go this way or that way is totally irrelevant looks like okay right two required stress we can cut strips okay what about a quarter square technicals now in the patchwork world and again there are lots and lots and lots of templates you start off with a baby one there are the mini ones these fits your jelly rolls so if you've got jelly roll you'll want to take quarters small there's little tiny weeny ones chip can you pass through the jelly roll just remind everybody there is a jelly roll and that one is specifically this line just a plate then you've got and they go up in various sizes you've got the four and a half inch one that makes half a four and a half inch square you've got a six and a half inch one and you've got the ten and a half inch one and there you can and a half inch one nice great big one and they're all marked out in half inches all up and down the sides so you see how they used in just a moment okay in the patchwork world half a square is in fact a really useful thing to understand and the reason why it's called half a square is strangely two of these when put together make a square this particular template scores because it's a paperback if I make okay thank you the top of this here is missing a bit now why do they do that well it saves three-eighths of an inch and actually it does add up over time it also means it helps in the accuracy now that little bit there is not broken it's meant to have a point on it don't think it's not broken at all this works in a really clever way I think the lady who designed these templates that are very bright idea okay how they going to get cut okay right I've cut again a four and a half inch strips board cuts trim we've shown this is the four and a half inches going to take the little one although they all work in exactly at the same way right place the little one onto the fabric and it fits exactly there's a funny little black bit down the bottom there don't worry about that you're going to take the rotary cutter and push the cutter firmly up the edge of the template I didn't start quite early enough see let me cut through that a little bit this gives me two triangles I tend to cut my fabric folded double so you've got two oh no I would like some more to get the next lot if you turn the template over like that this is where when you lay this template on the fabric you want to get it so that that little black point hangs off the end AHA and you will see that this is bringing you stray surges in or you say absolutely okay and this is giving you that little bit off the end there right let's cut it mister fraction this will end up with a shape that has a flat point flat bit one end and a point the other and exactly the same on that one now you're obviously not going to take two colors and stitch them together because that are being a little silly so we want another color here I have a little bit of green let me use the bigger one because some people might like to have this and the same thing it's a four and a half inch strip so there's my four and a half inches lay the fabric the template on top of the fabric cut up the side but again if you choose to go for the larger one so in all aspects Jenny if we went for larger templates that's gonna give you more sizes gives you exercises and more easily okay another I think if I were going to have one of these I would most certainly think about either having this one or going for the big job yes I think that's the confusing thing easy starting you see how many different I have to go this is great for classes it's great for small project it's great for working miniature very often I would have the middle one I find in this particular range I think the middle one is possibly the easiest the big one is nice but it is large okay Viktor right having got my two triangles these can be stitched together now the amazing thing about that happens when you sew these things together is they will end up exactly the same size as one of those cut four and a half inch where it's up both corners that little bit if you have that doesn't really matter sometimes you will end up and find you've got one corner one end and a pointy bit the other end you can't always get it so they're exactly right but what it does help your seam allowance is your seam will go through where the two fabrics cross over so let me just demonstrate it on this sewing machine okay now you have a little tip good old friend saver yes fabric already that it's run through though it saves your thread so it's not going to dip down it will also stop the needle months reading okay it stops the thread from jumping around in the take-up lever messing around in the bottom bobbin and it really smooths out the stitching so I'm going to stay with regular size stitch lengths and you will have a quarter of an inch seam allowance sewing off that little scrap down the edge of the fabric keeping the edge of the presser foot on the edge of the material all the way down all the way down out saying your your quarter of an hour absolutely when you get to the very bottom rescue your little scrap from the back there rescued little scrap cut him off and he's all ready to be put back on the other end ready for the next go this will save a fortune in expect you good when you pull through you might lose 12 or 20 inches of thread yeah and so I know it's maybe being a little bit thrifty it could be a real mess on the carpet you no longer have that it's all sort of contagious it's frustrating sometimes when this red just go down and you're pulling it back out again you're getting a build-up me a good tip when you've sewn them together what I would suggest you do then is you press the back seam open and flat okay because again this spreads the load makes it a little bit flatter and this piece is now exactly the same size just on that one now I've cut a four and a half inch strip to do them both when I've sewn around all the sides of this it will be a four inch square now a very quick design could be made by taking some of these and if I were to do this effect four times and make my four half-square triangles into the squares take one further plain square a four and a half inch one for others I can make another nine patch which has a name and the name of this nine patch is something called the Amish friendship start now the designs come from the Amish though they really do affect in patchwork quilt time and they still are and in fact if you go to that part of America there are some absolutely fabulous fabulous I purposely do something wrong in each of that yes because I know one is perfect no and there is your friendship stop very simple to do and again I would sew it together these two together these two together those two together got a fabulous example on the wall behind us and them away first the Amish friendship start is here we are one you can wave around there we go and we've got another one here at the front to show you so nice at the table runner here and it and love the point that you made before you know if you have children that have outgrown their clothes rather than actually throwing those clothes away if you've got pretty dresses and things like that use those materials to actually create a beautiful patchwork quilt so when you're your daughter yes Lee is older she's got all of those memories of her childhood and it will go on and go on forever we can now do half squares okay let's look at a quarter square okay right this is just here to show you see when you understand the half squares you can make them any size that's room like tiny there isn't but this is the whole thing about patchwork it's being picky about your points new and with the right tools the cutting tools the templates you can get these points accurate right let's go for our quarter squares now you might say to yourself what is a quarter square well here we've only got two templates we've got the regular size one and this one's actually has a slightly strange name although it's a quarter square it's called a companion angle and we've got a mini one here which works in conjunction with your jelly rolls your two and a half inch strips what a quarter square actually is strange enough is a quarter of a square and the thing you need to be aware of is that a half square and a quarter square although they may look like the same sort of triangle this is a triangle they don't behave in the same way let me show you how they behave that is a half square triangle which will have one stretchy side and two straight sides okay if we cut a quarter square triangle and this time game to you is a two and a half inches script and the reason for using a two and a half inch strip is I'm working in 4-inch blocks okay two inches is half of four yeah add on the seam allowances that gives you four hundred two and a half inches the ruler helps you because down the sides of the ruler it has the measurement of the finished size of the square so this is a four inch finished square I will need to cut a two and a half inch strip because this is a quarter square okay take your fabrics lay the ruler on the top there I'll line it with the layers of the fabric at the bottom there find the rotary cutter cut up one side now you will not be cutting towards yourself because that would be totally wrong flip the fabric over replace the template and cut up the other side so you're always cutting away from you that is a quarter square four of these will fit together now look at the difference between the two this one has one straight side and two stretches right this one has one stretchy side and two straights okay they work in very different ways my if I were to cut out four of these in different colors I would end up with four triangles I could put together so let me show them we've got them here four triangles one of those one of those and you've got sort of the classic egg-timer one there and one there okay now I can stitch these together and I would sew them together I'd say two together to make a half two together to make a half so you'd end up with these two pieces and then down the middle and then straight down the middle and press the seam open and flat if you were to do this by changing your you could use it as a border if you want you to so here we have the block piece together mm-hmm and I could use these as a border or if I put them together in a certain way look I get a little in the middle mm-hmm okay perfect or I could have them like that I think the wonderful thing about patchwork dawn is they've got so many different things you yeah you can play around with can indeed it's quite in a way it's like simple mathematics isn't it to get it lined up like that of course you're not having to do any measuring if you have the templates you could make your designs out of two colors and two slightly different colors because a very good plastic design that you could do with these and I've got four of these cut out so I cut four half-square triangles in the dark purple four in the light purple eight in the green in between because these measure the same I could lay my square so let's put one of those there got another one of those I thought I had oh man yes yes well thank you she was lovely job stereo super one there one there and one there and let's put one of these in the middle and now I've got a design called the Ohio oh yes which could look like the one I have here that's very pretty and again you've created all of that from technically the triangles and the squares yes yes because when you understand the principle for cutting your squares and your triangles the world is your oyster and you can move on and create a wide range of very many different designs so that is your portion squares and your half squares how to cut your squares in the first place and how to cut and that becomes glutes or beginners section of course there is so many more things that you can measure in with patchwork quilt saying we are just trying to simplify it for anybody who would like to get started and it's all part of our fabulous at craft Academy [Music]

Channel: Create & Craft TV

Views: 1,393,489

Rating: 4.8427291 out of 5

Keywords: Crafting, Patchwork, Quilting, Making, Craft Academy, Craft (TV Subject)

Id: TGqlwN6TWFw

Length: 35min 58sec (2158 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 21 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/yikesssbaby]

As an-almost-beginner (I’m too afraid to start!), thank you so much!

[u/DramaticSeaCreatures]

Thanks so much for the educational video! I’m currently working on my first quilt and am embarrassed by how long it is taking me. I seem to let my quilt rest for weeks at a time. I am so glad you shared this. I hope I’ll get the opportunity to finish my quilt top in my next session. Then I have get to start the fun part. Of which I may have to find a video, too.