Tumbling Block Quilt - Tips and Tricks

oh hi this is Nancy with a point TV quilting with Nancy thank you all for joining we are doing our second YouTube life today I know it's been a couple of weeks since I've been able to be on and honestly the weather in Michigan has just been too perfect I can't be inside my studio when the weather in Michigan is as perfect as it has been so I've been spending a lot of time outside which has been really fun and the technique I want to teach you is one that I've honestly been planning for a few weeks um it's kind of like a technique that is important and it's a quilt pattern that you probably haven't have seen before but it's not really a full class it's not like I need ten sessions to show you how to do this so I thought it would be perfect for YouTube lines what I'm gonna teach you is tumbling blocks so tumbling blocks have been around for ages if it is a classic classic pattern so this is let me turn it this way that is your basic tumbling block it is made with 60-degree triangles usually there is a light a medium and a dark and it's got that three-dimensional Miss to it now keep in mind there's a gazillion ways that you can actually make a tumbling block but I'm gonna show you what I really think is the easiest method for making a tumbling block so I'm gonna move this one out of the way this one has been in my um unfinished box so this is this is how I store my unfinished quilts lots of them gets stored in pizza boxes clean pizza boxes don't have a pizza box store and say can I have some pizza boxes and I'll say sure sometimes I'll charge a buck so when I the first time I did this was on this quilt so this is a quilt from Keith facet so one of his very very first books with Westminster Roland fabrics and I just loved it and what I loved about it was the idea where you can see hopefully I can show you this this is the tumbling block and these are set setting stars if you will it makes the process of making a tumbling block so much easier now I do have quilts that I've done with just the traditional tumbling blocks where you're piecing hexagons together but this just made it easier so this is one of the remaining leftover strips from that quilt and so you can see that this is your row so your row is that tumbling block with the triangles on either side tumbling block with the triangles on either side so for this technique the block is 360 degree triangles and two equilateral triangles on the two sides so when you do it that way you're able to put blocks together in solid rows so makes the whole process of tumble he wants much easier here's another one that has this also was a key facet type design now this one is actually more of a Lemoine star type but it is made with tumbling blocks so here's to try diamonds and a block this is two diamonds in a block and when those sets of three went together then you added another diamond and all of these actually intermingled with each other this piece and not so easy this one took a bit the one that inspired me to actually show you how to do this is this one this boat is made with fabrics from Tim Holtz that's H o LTZ now he is a mixed-media artist he works for Ranger Ranger makes inks and tools and stuff for mixed-media sand scrapbooking and just so many different things well Tim Holtz actually went from they have mixed-media kind of stuff into fabric and so when he did that these are his fabrics and when I went to make this quilt I just love the idea of E because it was just so eclectic and the collection was called eclectic elements that made it really easy and the idea just I just love with the tumbling blocks and then these triangles so you can see the roll is right here okay so you've got a tumbling block the triangles tumbling black the triangles tumbling block triangles and then when they're set side by side it creates a star so this quilt is called diamonds and stars and the pattern for this quilt is on our website so it's a free pattern so if you go to on point - tv.com and then get down to the resources section I gotta tell you I had a hard time finding the resources section when I was on my phone but it was a lot easier when I was on my computer if you get to the resources section there's three free downloads there one of them is about power cutting the second one is about setting squares and triangles and the third one is the diamonds in Stars pattern now I gotta give credit where credit is due so let me get into here okay I gotta show you the middle of this okay sorry be flashing this in your face so much so if you look here look at on this trying this tumbling block do you see where they've got the 60 degrees for diamonds and then look at this guy up here he is a pieced diamond right above it same idea - 60 degree diamonds and a pieced diamond up here those pieced diamond sections come from a designer hoop from Canada her name is Linda France in its f ra NT Z and her book is called diamonds and more diamonds such a cool book and also fabulous teacher if you ever get a chance to take a class with Linda France but the idea that blended us is the dear Jane blocks dear Jane blocks are like these little dinky blocks might be this small maybe a little bit bigger and they're very intricately speak pieced blocks well good ol Linda France took those already intricately designed blocks and then she'd made them into diamonds and so that's where these patterns come from so cool her instructions are exceptional if you've ever wanted to do one of those many your blacks that's where you really need to stop Linda France with a Z um go to her website and she's got all of her books on it so that was really what I started with I have those diamonds pre-made probably three or four years before this fabric ever came out um I kind of sort of happened to remember I had them and so I created the whole tumbling black spot with those around I'm gonna show you two techniques for piecing this why sing this is a wise thing which is the exact same thing that we do in Lone Star's so if you ever want to see if what the Lone Star I've got that whole video series out there I'm piecing a Lone Star I go very very in depth on the wising we're gonna do it a little bit here too but I'm gonna teach you another technique and the second technique is from the designer and teacher her name is guy lien Fitzgerald and her company and website is colorful stitches and I think colorful is the oh you kind of color in there but guy lien Fitzgerald if you just type in Fitzgerald quilter you will find her phenomenal teacher again if you ever get a chance to take a class with Kylene Fitzgerald you don't miss it and her technique of this intersecting scene she calls butterfly seems so just a different technique I'm gonna show you how to do both of those but what I really want to show you is the way to doing these with jelly rolls what's a jelly ball or a design roll this is what it is so what jelly roll is going to be a two and a half inch wide strip with all of the colors from a particular designer's collection excuse me so all of this variety here is another one I have here alright well you can't really see that one very well cuz it's still just open it up this one was the first one was a pretty spirit design this is a Camelot design really really pretty soft colors I think that one's gonna be fabulous don't know about you but I'm addicted to jelly rolls I will buy them at a drop of a hat just because they're pretty no other reason so I want to you using the jelly rule because then that's gonna give you a variety of colors and fabrics and you don't even have to cut the strips so half the works already well okay not half of that a quarter of the work is already done so I got this really cute little collection this is a collection I turn this one um I think this was a Camelot fabric and this is with Lion King and who does not love Lion King so the first thing you want to do is open up your jelly roll and organize it from light to dark so I've got my darkest ones down here and then my lighter ones up in here because with a tumbling black it's important that you try to get the light medium dark of the tumbling block to actually make it tumble it gets that three-dimensional look so one thing to remember is that these blues are obviously dark so I could use this green with the blue that would be the medium then come up here and get one of these lighter ones to be the light one but what about if you wanted because I only got three please left what if I wanted the green to be the dark I could do that if I took that green to be the dark this yellow to be the medium and maybe this guy to be the light behave yourself so then we would have the dark medium and light so dark leaving light are subjective terms every fabric can be lighter or darker than any other fabric it depends on the one that you're using with it okay so to start this out I took my fabric strips so I've got two here I've done a dark blue and an orange right there right and I sold them together with my scant quarter inch so I used a really dark thread so you could see it already sold it already Preston so I pressed it nice and flat and then I did this one with the green and the orange and I think that in this case I would still make the green be my dark and the orange would be my medium I'm gonna lay them down together and now it's time to start cutting this degree angles so it's like alright I got all my rolls I'd sew the strip's together but a boom by the being now I'm ready to cut them okay so for the cutting of them I would recommend as always using power cutting because power cutting is gonna be the most accurate and the quickest way not that I'm trying to rush but it is the most accurate and efficient way to actually do the cutting so I got my get these guys out of the way so I've got my eight and a half inch ruler on my eight and a half and this is an omni grid ruler there's the 30 degree 45 degree and 60 degree angles these are the angles that um they use for my cutting that 60 degree angle so with then I want to cut these diamonds the same size as my strips a jelly ruler and design rule is gonna start two and a half inches so I have placed my glow tape that's my glow tape also used one of those colors on there to actually put on the back side of this ruler and I placed it at two-and-a-half at five and at seven and a half so with this ruler in my sixty degree angle I'm gonna be able to cut three of these at a time so I'm gonna start here look I wanna start with try to be consistent I'm not always so sometimes my tumbling blocks kind of tumble in the opposite direction which honestly doesn't bother me but if it bothers you be sure that you always have your dark on the bottom whoops dark on the bottom medium on top if you do that all the time yours will be a little bit more consistent than mine are now I'm gonna line up the 60-degree angle of my ruler on the bottom here so here's my 60-degree angle of my ruler and I'm gonna cut now I have to turn these around because I am right-handed [Music] now I come back and again using the 60-degree angle and this is at seven and a half inches I'm gonna set that right on my strip so the angle that I just cut whoops let's did that wrong is right here at seven and a half inches and the bottom is running along the 45 degree angle okay FINA can you see that really good all right so I'm gonna take the phone from Athena please excuse the fingers that probably just went in front of you hey we've got a little bit of glare here okay so here is the seven and a half right there I'm that angle that I just cut and then this is the 60-degree angle running right here along the bottom of that strip okay so that is going to be where you're gonna place your cuts and I'm gonna bring the camera back clipping off I should have let her say hi okay so now I'm gonna come using the power cutting so with power cutting starting at seven and a half cut slide this over to five inches lining five here keeping the sixty degree on the bottom cut slide this over to two and a half sixty degrees still at the bottom and cut so I would do that all the way throughout and then I would end up with all these diamonds so what's different here is normally you would cut your Dinah's and then sew em all together with a jelly roll you don't have to pre-cut them I'm just takin the strip and sewing them the strip together and then just cutting them out all like that so I'm not having to piece my triangle on piece my Dinah's first alright I don't know if I explained that well enough normally you take strips you cut the diamonds and then you're piecing all individual diamonds together by using a jelly roll you so the strip first and then do the cutting so I'm eliminating kind of like that a little bit of fussiness that you usually do it your sewing machine so now we're gonna go to the ironing board oh wait a minute nope we're not gonna go to the ironing board I need to cut some of my light colored strips so I've got a stack here that I have been using and I'm gonna do the exact same thing with this so these are my light fabrics I've already cut some of them off just like before I'm gonna start at the seven-and-a-half sixty degree angle running along the bottom seven and a half and so these are gonna be the top diamonds these are gonna be in my bottom the medium and the dark so now we're gonna go over to the ironing board so we're gonna come over here Kathina be careful you might want to show people like to see the king RC is ours up there and make it guess he's afraid he's being shy today that's something new for him alright so Athena is gonna go up nope I need you to go up to the ironing board it's almost like we rehearsed this but maybe not as well as maybe we should yes all right so now we're here the ironing board I'm gonna take the Dino sections that I just made and I'm gonna press them in one direction I'm gonna choose to press these two this dark there again yep you are really persnickety about you want the consistent dark on the right light on the top medium on the side then you want to really take a lot of care knowing which way your diamonds are the strip's whether or not one is on the top of the bottom I just am honestly not that person a kitty never has been so a couple more here and then I'll show ya yet the sewing machine how to piece that Y seam or butterfly see oh so on some of these I need to press in Sulkin so to do the guy lean Fitzgerald butterfly seeing you press them to one side to do what I usually do with my license and press this open yeah so I've got a couple to do with the why seem the way I traditionally do it and then a couple to do guy leans way all right so now I'm gonna take these and my light colored strips and we're gonna go to the sewing machine terrible record careful reow there kitty all right come on over here so I have my machine set up with a scant quarter of an inch I'm using my guidelines for quilting little seam guide here you know how much I love those um really really helps you keep your scant quarter-inch seam scamp right so this is one of them that I opened the seam width for the technique that I normally do I'm just gonna come in here and kind of flip open a couple of those stitches okay because I'm going to turn it right there in that spot so I've got this here's my white so I'm gonna say this is how am i try my tumbling black is going to go I am gonna start piecing on the right-hand side so I take my diamond section and I tip it over right on top then I'm gonna use a pin and hold that right in place so the top diamond is laying on top of my light colored diamond on the bottom and then I can open that up do you see how they'd opens I'm going to try to sew right to there that is in between these seams and a quarter of an inch from the edge get right in there and then my needle is going to stop right in that intersection now I spin this take this pin out and literally spin this around this is the exact same way that I did it the Lonestar where I just kind of spun it around no it's gonna start up again and I'm gonna do that again so here's my piece I'm the takeout just kind of randomly take out a couple of those stitches there at the top this is what he's gonna look like so he's gonna look like little symbols face that is some butt right okay take this I'm gonna sew this seam first always sewing the right hand side seam first so flip that right over on top and then I'm shooting my I want to be able to pivot right there at that intersection now I find this technique that's quite comfortable maybe because I've been doing it for a really really long time I've never really had a problem with Y seams but they are really problematic to lots of people lots of people do not like doing a Y seam which is why guy Lena Fitzgerald came up with her butterfly ceiling so that's what that's gonna look like all right so there's my intersection nice and clean okay quite adorable but like I said I like doing but I like doing Y seems but a lot of people don't so for a guy leans technique she takes the part about you know spinning it with your needle down and spinning it she takes it out so you're only ever sewing straight seams so this is how you do this will be my design now on this one I pressed to the right hand side so that means I'm gonna start sewing on the left hand side I'm gonna take this little guy line him up [Music] when I get to about here whoops again excuse my finger gonna lift it up in him get another one so you can kind of do a little bit of chain piecing with these here it is again I am pressed to the right hand side so I'm gonna start sewing on the left hand side right on top move him out of the way in another solo pretty much to the end lift up and cut off so with Kylie's technique you're gonna be doing two seams keep in mind this is guy lean fitzgerald's technique so if you really really want to see how this is done I recommend you go to her website to see so now I'm going to carefully on stitch just a couple of those so that it's unstitched to where that last diamond is it's right to there okay and now this is so cool take that diamond this is the diamond that has two scenes sewed on it fold it together when you fold that together whoops look what happens this is the next angle that you need to so that's the dark and the light that need to come together so you just take that diamond fold it together and this time so all the way to the end and just stop so I'm gonna put my needle down there okay so again I so started sewing on the left hand side we need to get this seam over here to this edge to sew so just carefully on stitch don't cut the threads just unstitched those spreads I use the dark thread so you could actually see it so I'm hoping that's working one more now the diamond that has two seams sewn on it just fold it in half don't bet right together and then bring this one they'll be like a little stitch that you plucking out or pulling out and it pulls it together it kind of makes it like a little sandwich look there there's our little cheese in between the two layers of bread okay I just thought of that [Music] so there you have a tumbling block so you can do it with the method where you open the scene and turn it on that diamond or try guy leans butterfly scene where you stitch it cut it off and then kind of fold that sandwich in there to fold your last one so now let's go back to the ironing board I'm sorry not the yes the ironing board okay sorry Athena say hi to the kitty see there we go that was Athena falling that's why we do my videos okay so now I'm gonna press it so okay so when I pressed it to one direction for guy leans technique now I'm gonna press it in the opposite direction because that's the way that it's now stitched down and then there's one tumbling block and then here's the one where I did the opening when I do the opening scene I press the top or the light one down completely so there so that one was open but I don't keep these open I just keep that one open so that it's easier the piece so now we have two really adorable tumbling blocks and now the question is what's next what do we do now you could take those stumbling blocks and try piecing them together with this continuous angle and if you do you are east quilting superhero because this is not easy do you see a single straight line to be quill it to be stitching nope you end up in this is your row here doom doom doom doom doom now there are some ways that you can do it where you actually piece around this one so it's always a set in the seams you end up making octagons and octagons and octagon octagons and it really works pretty cool but it is not easy people so this is what I want to show you for making an easier tumbling block is this taking that tumbling block and adding to it the equilateral triangle so all my friends are going she knows what an equilateral triangle is yes I do because I'm a quilter so we're gonna add these to the top and the bottom so that when we're piecing them it'll be just one straight line and then we'll do row after row and the truth is is that's pretty much the entire technique but I'll bet you're wondering what size do you cut those the equilateral triangles if you will add a quarter of an inch you'll be able to cut your strips so let's go back to the cotton board okay I'm gonna take the camera oh oh I just put my thumb over the lens please forgive me I'm a reversing camera okay there we go hi Athena okay we're coming back this way see I told you I'd tell her hi say hi Athena all right there we go I got that done some people don't even go oh my goodness where did you get that pepper Mwanza Tanzania is where I got that fabric I was blessed to be able to go to Mwanza Tanzania and teach the people there the ladies there in particular there were a couple of guys how to soul such an amazing experience I brought cranking sewing machines with us it was so cool so anyway that's where I got this banner so the Lord this technique of those equilateral triangles you need to cut your strips a quarter of an inch bigger so these the strip's we were using with two and a half inches right so I wanna cut or tear these two and three-quarter inches all right can you see this if he was trying to point this out to me that's mulligans so the white cat you saw rc4 Ryder Cup this is Mulligan I kind of picked him up from the me Humane Society while bill was off to a golf tournament so I decided to give him golf evenings so we call a Molly in RC so back to quilting all right so I've got my strip and I'm gonna cut it or tear it to and three-quarter inches and why do I say tear because I'm gonna tear that the length of Babur just like that tears beautifully the length of fabric and then you just take off a couple of those strips okay if you want to stay here and look at mulligan a second I'm gonna go and press this really fast okay Mulligan entertain our guests okay okay so I press this now I have a two and three-quarter inch strip and this is where I like to hopefully there is find a little bit of a smaller ruler because I need to cut equilateral triangles so I'm gonna come to the side put something that can stay in place oh this is a good why didn't we ever do this before no idea I don't know so here is the 60-degree angle of my ruler don't place that there and then you can turn now there are a couple of different rulers out there for doing this but if you can do it with a ruler you already own why not so now I'm putting that on the 60-degree angle using the same you don't have to keep turning the no is it this way there it is okay so here we are again with the 60-degree angle which is one of the reasons that I like the Omni grid rulers because they have those angles Criss crossing so once you get yourself into a mode finding your angles is not that hard I'm not in a mode as you can tell there it is so I think that there's like one of the rights rulers easy pieces maybe there's something out there so that cuts equilateral triangles that will piece into those tumbling blocks so there you have an easy way hopefully for you to consider doing tumbling black quilts if you're using a jelly roll or a design roll two and a half inches already cut and then everything is based on that two and a half inches the quilt that I showed you the one with the Tim Holtz fabrics and those cool diamonds those were not cut with a two and a half inch I think it was three and a half but if you're wondering go to our website so I'm point - TV is going to be our website find the resources section and down there you'll see one of the free resources and it's that pattern and in the pattern I show you how to get ahold of Linda France so that you can look for that diamonds book and the information that I got on pression from Guilin Fitzgerald to print also so you can contact her if you want any more information I hope you enjoyed this a little bit of a free-for-all and Athena falling down the steps but kittens visiting us in the you know studio all these things could happen any time when you're on live video this video will be posted on our YouTube channel so if you would like to see it again and most importantly if you would like to share it with your friends have them start following us on Facebook we'll start doing our new series here the fall is coming so we're gonna start with our rail fence so we've got three or four different variations of a rail fence coming up in our next series if you have any questions send me your questions you can send them to my email which is quilting with Nancy and gmail.com I'll answer your emails as quick as I can if you want to hire me I would love to come to teach you your guild or your store that would be really fun and if you have any questions you can also put some on our youtube channel and maybe we'll turn it into one of our ask Nancy segments where I'll do different things if you got a question about show me again how you did that equilateral triangle I don't get it that would be okay I could show you again so I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and thank you very much for cooking with Nancy

Channel: OnPoint-TV and Quilting with Nancy

Views: 28,503

Rating: 4.9154558 out of 5

Keywords: nancy roelfsema, quilting with nancy, tumbling block quilt, y-seam, set in seam, Gyleen X. Fitzgerald, Linda Franz, diamonds, jelly roll, new quilter, HOW TO QUILT, LEARNING TO QUILT, Kaffe Fassett, Tim Holtz, diamonds and stars, omni grid ruler, glow-line tape

Id: AHzJ6xOm8jw

Length: 33min 4sec (1984 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 19 2018