Hi, I’m Jenny from the MSQC. I want you
to take a look at this quilt behind me. How beautiful is this? And it just looks like
it’s so difficult but as usual, this is an easy quilt to do. And I can’t wait to
show you it. So one of the fun things that I do is that I go around a teach in all these
different places. And every once in awhile somebody makes a mistake on their block. And
as it happened in that case, that mistake turned into a whole new quilt. So I love when
that happens. So I’m up in Idaho and this gal, Glenna, she says to me, How come I can’t
make this look like the disappearing pinwheel. It isn’t working. And I started playing
with that block and what I realized was that instead of a pinwheel, she had sewn it together
as an hourglass. I should call this the disappearing Glenna. But we’re going to call this the
disappearing hourglass because she made an hourglass. And by doing the same thing we
did in the disappearing pinwheel block, you get a block that looks like this. How cool
is that? So let me walk you through it. So to make this quilt, you’re going to need
a layer cake of color and a layer cake of solid. For this quilt behind me, we used the
Cafe Facet Cool line from Rowan Fabrics. And it’s just beautiful. I mean I love the bright
colors and all the blues. You guys know I love blues. And so, so that’s what you need
to make it. We also put a little border on here. It’s about a five inch border so you’ll
need about a yard and a half for that. So the first thing we’re going to do is
we’re going to take a 10 inch square of color. Here’s our 10 inch square of color.
And a 10 inch square of white. We’re going to put those right sides together. And we’re
going to sew all the way around it because we want to make four half-square triangles.
So I’m going to go over to the sewing machine and sew this. Now sometimes, if you get fabric
from different companies, you would think 10 inches is always going to be 10 inches
but sometimes it’s not. And so when that happens, and you have layer cakes that are
a little bit different size, just choose one and make that one your edge and follow that
one. That’s what I do and that saves you from feeling like you have to trim everything
down. So I’m just going to sew straight around this block. People always ask me if
I sew off the corner or if I stop and pivot. It just depends on how fast I’m going. Sometimes
I can stop and pivot, sometimes I’m like woosh, right off the side. And one more side.
There we go. Now what we’re going to do is we are going
to cut this diagonally both directions, corner to corner. Both sides. So here we are. We
cut, one cut this way, and one cut this way. Alright, now what we have to do is we’re
going to iron these open to make our four, oops, I got a little string here. Hang on
a second. I do a lot of cutting on this mat. When you get deep grooves in a mat, then sometimes
you end up with these little places where it doesn’t quit catch them all. But that’s
pretty easy to fix. So now what we’re going to do is we’re just going to iron these
open. That will give us four half square triangles. One more. There we go. And then we’re going
to lay these out in an hourglass method. So what we’re going to do. I’m going to scoot
this over here. What we’re going to do is we are going to
put two colors pointing together. And two whites pointing together like this. That makes
the hourglass block right there. And then you’re going to sew it together just like
you’d sew a four patch. So we’ll sew these two sides like this. And these two sides like
this. And sew our seam together in the middle. So let’s go over to the sewing machine and
do that. Alright, here we go. Now if you’re really careful, you can, you can go ahead
and chain piece these. You just want to make sure that you’re going to same direction.
It’s much easier to check than it is to have to rip out. So I like to stop and check
every so often. The other thing I’m going to do right now is I’m going to cut off
these little, these little edges that are sticking out. So I’m just going to trim
those on both sides here. Let’s see, there we go. And you can do that with a scissor
or your rotary cutter, either one. It will just give you less, less bulk of fabric in
there. Alright, so then we’re going to open these up and make sure we have them going
the right direction. Alright, there we go. And there we are. So now what we’re going
to do is put these two pieces together and make this block. So what I like to do when I sew these pieces
together is I like to start a little sewing and then I make sure my middle lines up together.
So I just find that seam and I feel for the nesting with my fingers to make sure that’s
it’s going to line right up exactly. And then again, I line it up where the two bottom
seams come together as well. And that gives you, you know it enables you not to pin and
to give you pretty good points. So let’s see how we did. Pretty good there. So I’m
going to iron this out. Alright now the exact same thing that we did with the disappearing
pinwheel, we’re going to do with the disappearing hourglass. So we’re going to measure the
size of our block and we’re going to divide that by three because we want to turn it into
a nine patch. Now I have, I have one here that is ready
to cut. And my measurement from comes out to four and quarter. That each piece is four
and a quarter. You’ll want to measure yours and find out for sure what yours is. So you
can measure four and quarter in from the edge or you can measure it from the middle out.
If I go from the middle out that’s 2 1/8th. It’s half of 4 ¼. So I’m going to make
that cut on all four sides. I’m going to be really careful not to move my block at
all. And, and just cut all the way around it. If you have a rotating mat, this is a
really good time to use that. You can also, if you have a small mat, you can just turn
your whole mat as well. One thing that you want to make sure of when you’re doing this
cutting, is that the edge of your ruler doesn’t have a half mark. If it has a half inch mark,
that will just really throw you off. So that’s the only time when I’ve taught this that
we end up with any trouble at all is if we have a ruler that has a half mark because
you forget and then your measurement is way off. So now what we have here is we have this awesome
block that is in nine pieces. Make sure I get all my little threads cut. Oops, there
we go. And this one, this one. Right here in the middle, that’s where I do all my
cutting so I’ve got some deep grooves there. There we go. So here’s our block. And if
we, if we squeeze these together you can see it’s still the hourglass. So let me show
you how to get this awesome star out of this hourglass block. First thing you’re going
to do, all your middle squares here, you’re going to turn around. So we’re going to
flip these over like this. And just, we’re flipping them straight around like that. This
actually makes a really cool block too. But we’re not finished. We’re going to take
our middle square and we’re going to rotate it one so that it offsets. And then our corner
squares, we’re going to turn to the outside. Just flip them so the little tiny corner is
on the outside corner like this. And look at that star. Look how cool that is. Can you
see that? I have one here that is done like this. It looks so cool. So how we’re going to sew this together
then is just in three rows. So let’s go ahead and take these three rows. I’m going
to take these three over and just sew those two to the middle. This goes together so quick
and fun. And it just makes a beautiful block. And I like to sew my two sides to my middle
to make sure that I’m, I’m, you know, I’m, I’m going the right direction. Here
we go. There we are. I like to make my, start on the top and make my edges line up. So here
we go. We take it back and we check and see that we’re in the right place. So I’m
going to go ahead and do the other two rows and I’ll meet you right back here. So now I’ve finished sewing all three rows
together and now what I’m going to do is I’m going to press them. And then I’m
going to sew the three rows together. Just as easy as sewing a, a nine patch. I like
to press from the top, and then I can flip it over and make sure my seams are going to
way I want them to. But now I just have to sew these rows together. So let’s go do
that. Alright. The cool thing about this is you can match it up each little, each little
block, you can match it up so it stays nice and together. And then we make sure that’s
right, we set up the other one. Always look before you sew because it’s way easier to,
to be, you know, more careful than it is to pick out. Although I know there are some professional
pickers out there. I think all of us are a little bit professional at that. But. When
I go teach at these different places, they’ll be ladies who will be like, Well I’m a professional
picker. Alright, we’ve got our two rows on. And now we’ve got a block. So let’s
check this out. I’m going to iron it. And there we go. Look how cool that is. Isn’t
that darling? So when you go to put these together, what
you’re going to do is you’re going to line these up so they go opposites. Like right
here you have your color with your white. And what that does is these four little squares
in the corner then it makes that cool little hourglass in the corner. So you have that
tiny little block in the corner. You didn’t sew any of those little tiny pieces on but
you get that extra little block. Now I wanted to show you, because I love,
you know, these darker Civil War colors, I wanted to show you how cute this looks in
Civil War fabric as well. So this is one of those patterns that is going to be beautiful
with anything that you do. So we hope you enjoyed this tutorial on the Disappearing
Hourglass from the MSQC.
