"Twin Sisters" Quilts Through the Seasons Series

in the spring just before Easter my sister Patty and I would make Easter baskets for our cousins while our best ones where the duck baskets made out of yellow plastic bleach bottles and the beaks were orange felt well do you remember sharing crafts with your sister Patty is just 15 months younger than me but we have always been so close I feel like she is my twin sister well here's a picture of all of us taking it Easter in 1958 Patty and I are next to one another in our Easter bonnets is just so cute and this one was taken at our parents 50th wedding anniversary amazing our smiles are still the same but I will never be as thin as she is well I'm dedicating this quilt to my twin sister Patty the blocks are tiny five inch pinwheel blocks and just cheery spring colors they remind me of those Easter crafts days with patty well I named the quilt twin sisters after I found this old newspaper clipping well the headline is quilt shares in sad love story of twin sisters it's by Nancy Cabot who wrote a syndicated column appearing in the Chicago Tribune and the 1930s well the story goes twin sisters is a striking pattern which was first made in 1845 in Pennsylvania there is a tragic story concerning this pattern a pair of quilts was made for the Hope Chest of a pair of twins well three weeks before their marriages were to have taken place one of the twins fell ill and died her quilt was passed on to the other sister's great-granddaughter just a sad story you know that was over a hundred and fifty years ago but today we will revive the twin sisters quilt there is a happy ending to that sad story originally the blocks were made with templates but now they're made quite quickly with strips with a half strip of medium and a half strip of dark you can make two blocks thus they're twins again we'll take a look at this block it's made with yellow and blue well the way they're sewn together the blue ends up in the center in this block so I call it the positive block now made at the very same time is this one the yellows in the center now or the negative block so the whole quilt is just made of positive and negative blocks well for instance this one gold is in the center and blue around the outside edges and made at the same time now the blue was in the center and this one up here it's a yellow large-scale print with green and down in the corner it's made it's the green in the center well Judy Jackson did the quilt it's just wonderful windmill kind of swirling around there the whole quilt is set together with 2-inch lattice and corner stones and then you can just take the extra strips sewn together for the rainbow border it's just perfect well this is a perfect quilt for fat quarters now I know you have fat quarters but personally I would just love to go into the quilt shop pick up a whole stack of back quarters that the quilt shop already coordinated for me oh my gosh what a time-saver that's what I just love to do go shopping for fat quarters well for the wall hanging you need to have seven medium fat quarters and seven dark back quarters pretty easy to do and then you just start pairing them up for instance there's a nice flower texture in this one look cute with the cheque that works I like that one or how about this check with this medium print you always want to have some variation in your scale and in your values so they work together there well I put my fat quarters already right sides together so they're ready for sewing let's just take a look I paired up with the dark on the top this is one that reads solid from a distance with the medium scale yellow they're right sides together the next pair is this large scale print with the green I pulled from the leaves that's working good and then this one I love that solid gold with the little gold flowers in it well get them all lined up cut edge at the top and salvage at the bottom now the strips are two and a half inches so the first thing I want to do is just go ahead trim off that outside edge straighten it and get rid of it now I put some glow line tape on my ruler at two and a half inches so that I can just quickly cut right across there now they're ready for sewing so I don't even have to restock for a wall hanging you cut four sets of two and a half inch strips and then with anything that you have leftover cut it into two inch squares for the cornerstones will I I've got those four done oh my goodness the two-inch and I am ready for sewing so you can just take these pieces stack them up and get them right beside your machine these all cut into two inch squares in just a minute pick up the first pair you want to use a quarter inch seam allowance in 15 stitches to the inch boy I never change do i quarter inch or 15 stitches to the inches actually like 2.0 stitch length on your computerized sewing machine put them right sides together and zoom along there now if you wanted to do got your scraps that's fine dig out your straps you're going to need to have seeing half strips of medium and thirteen half strips of dark that's just for your blocks now this is only 25 blocks for your wall hanging but it gets more as you go along for a lap you need to have 40 a total of 40 strips for 40 blocks for twin it's 117 a queen is 143 blocks oh my gosh a king is 169 blogs you know there are only five inches so it takes lots of blocks okay the reason I put the dark on the top was because I wanted to set the seam with the dark on the top so that seam will be right behind the dark and ready for going on so just lead with your fingers press that open and you're ready for cutting I'm going to get the rest of them pressed and I'll show you how to cut them into blocks I had fun sewing my strips together well my twin sister Patty is also a stripper we just keep it in the family well the first thing you want to do with your press strips is measure the width of them the ideal measurement is four and a half but you should check yours because we're going to cut these strips into squares so cut whatever your measurement is just go over line up two or even three if you want with dark across the top and then I'm just going to go ahead and square off at that left edge you know it's so much easier if you go ahead and cut multiples at a time okay just take those ends get rid of them and then cut both sets into four and a half inch squares or whatever your measurement is that way you can get them done quickly and be ready to go on to the blocks to make a negative block and a positive block you need to have a total of four squares so just line those up there's just a little bit left over the end you can go ahead and cut this part into two and a half inch pieces just make some four pads out of them a lot of fun now I'm just going to take this one set set it aside and show you how to cut these squares just leave them with the dark at the top and consistently place your ruler on the diagonal and cut straight across you can just little pick up your ruler move it along there and then we're going to do the magic thing oh my gosh this is magical take your yellows the part of the block that is mostly yellow put those in one stack and then take your blues and put those in a second stack now this is going to be the positive block so focus on right here right in this point and turn all four pieces so that they meet right in that Center then uh that's the positive block I told you that's magical now do the same thing with the negative with the yellow focus on that little corner spot right there turn them all right around and like magic you have twin sisters just so much fun to do now I'm going to take and sew straight down through the middle on both of these so you take the piece on the right flip it over to the left and just take this one the right over to the left so I can just assembly line so well it's a good time to use your stiletto help it helps match up your pieces so at least start right up here with them all lined up and go ahead and use your quarter inch seam hold them together pick up this end right here line it up hold it flat and then from one just go straight into that second half just kind of assembly line sew it right through and match it up keep it going and I'm just going to repeat that with the second block well I'm going to tell you about my sister Patty's first stripping experience she was traveling with me my son's grant Narayan Patty and I were driving from San Francisco down to Morro Bay we were all packed in a little rabbit all the people and all the quilts pretty crowded but I started teaching in the morning at a quilt shop in Morro Bay and I do not know what happened by the time the afternoon came I was so sick I could not go on let me continue this story and I'll show you the next step okay so just clip apart right here clip it apart into the two blocks and open them up like this and just take flip the right piece on to the left and push this top seam up and the underneath seam down that locks them together especially when that top seam just shoves into the underneath seam looking good well anyhow as I was feeling really ill patty walked into the store in her bathing suit she was on the way to the beach with my sons I said patty you have to teach for me I'm so sick she said L I have never done any quilting in my whole life I said don't worry all you have to do is look at the pictures just do what it says so she was brave I went home she stayed there in her bathing suit and taught the class well that afternoon a photographer from the newspaper came by and he was supposed to take some pictures of me well actually I was so sick and dead daddy was there he took all of the pictures of Patty he appeared in the newspaper and whenever we looked at those photographs she had sewn all of the blocks backwards but you know what she fell in love with stripping that day she says oh man this is really lots of fun and she has been out teaching for me ever since loves it alright let's just take a look see what they look like good match right in the middle perfect let's see this one looks good nice easy simple block I think anyways now we want to make the center very flat so there was a connecting stitch right here and I'm just going to cut that connecting stitch with my scissors and just lay the block flat wrong side up now we want to swirl these seams around the center so this seam I'm going to push to the right this one is already laying down flat when I take this seam I'm going to press it to the left and the stitches in the center automatically pop open you just play with it with your fingers and then continue this seam goes around like this then just push it good right in the center and you have the cutest little four patch look from the other side and you can see how nice and flat it is so let's just take this one and clip this one too now when you press it you just swirl right around the center and the block lays completely flat personally I like steam so I'm just going to start here and just go right around press the floor patch right in the middle turn it over press on the opposite side looking very good and then just repeat with this one well I think that they may be perfect and you may not need to do one single bit of squaring up but just in case do some checking on them and you'll find out they should square up to approximately five and a half inches now I'm going to put the five and a half inch line right down through the seam and this diagonal line right up through this seam so just place it right on there line it up oh it is looking good but just in case you need to square yours up let me show you how much I'm going to trim I'm just trimming off on the top half and now I'm going to turn it around and trim the bottom half just turn it around like this do the same measurements five and a half right across here the five and a half inch line on the stitches diagonal line right up through there basically just cutting off those tips well if you think it's worth it to square up those blocks go ahead and do it well I just have a few more blocks to make and I'll show you how to sew the whole top together I'm playing with my blocks and that's what twin sisters do just play with their blocks well I'm making the wall hanging that is five rows across and five rows down and I think I have a plan begin with your positive block that's going to go right in the corner beside the positive comes the negative and from that point on you just keep on alternating okay this is the positive negative and positive now in the second row if this is positive you're going to start with the negative so let me just flip these apart and just see how these three rows look that I have laid out now when I sew with patty she says nope L you have to Unsoeld that because you have the same fabrics together but get more on sewing done than sewing with her you have your whole top laid out I still have two more rows to do but let me show you you take your two inch lattice cut the same size as your block in my case it's a five and a half inch lattice you just lay it around all of the pieces in between all of the pieces all of the rows let me get one up here and once the lattice is in place go to the two inch corner stones if you would like you can just do exactly the same starting with the positive up here in the corner then switch to the negative and positive and just keep on laying out all of your row now to sew these rows together I'd like to do vertical rows straight down not jump it up and thicken each time I stack up whole rows so you take the second row flip it right sides together to the one beside it and once you have that whole vertical row stack you start at the top and just pick up your pieces and place them one on top of the other and chose to remember when you get to your machine this is the top that's always the tricky part remember where your top is and then you've got a one hole handy stack there just pick up those pieces and sew straight down that stack once you sew the first two rows you just open them up whip the third row right sides together keep on going until they're all done and when you go back across the other way you press your seams towards the lattice let me get that done twin sisters is twice as much fun or just had a great time sewing the top together then I added a two and a half inch framing border on all four sides from the background fabric the rainbow border is next now these are also two and a half inch strips you need to have 20 of them a mix of the yellow and the blue doesn't matter what order you sew them in and then I just pressed all of those seams to one side now the width of this is supposed to equal the size of your top and oops it's back to the drawing board when I laid them out this one piece is just a little too long so this is what I get I started all over again did a whole other set and this time I went ahead and took a little deeper seam and you can see right here first I sewed with 4.0 billa I sewed with a wider seam at 3.0 so I did a couple of them and just kept on measuring against the top and now I think I've got it so once you've got that all done press those seams in one direction and cut them into five inch strips well this half strip is really enough to do both of the sides so just lay out your half strip and get that all lined up let me keep it straight on the on the grid heat line up your ruler oh I'm so good with those markings on my ruler I've got five inches too many times people walk into the room and talk to me and the next thing I know I'm cutting it all wrong I'm just going to cut too so I can show you how it all fits all right so the first thing to do is sew your strip down to sides and whenever you put that on there the best way is actually turn your strip so that you don't fight your seams make your seams go down and then when you do on the other side the seams would go always with the way you're sewing well so those two sides on fold them out and press your seams towards the background next comes five inch cornerstones now you're going to add your cornerstones first to your your strip like this let's see if we can get a different color oh you might want to turn it around to yellows maybe that's not so good so let's just turn around here that's better so since we've got a yellow and a green how about a blue right in there you sew your five inch squares to both ends press your seams towards the squares and that way they're going to lock together and then just sew it right on to your quilt top looking good I have some students quilts to show you twin sisters quilts are so much fun to make that my students got in the act well I go Rogers made this cheery one in bright coleg colors we'll each of the fabrics are modelled they have a hand-dyed look and that white lattice sets off the pieces her quilter Amy Potter used multicolored thread and then she stitched a medallion in the center of every block and then she did ovals in the rainbow border just so nice I go used up every last bit of that gorgeous fabric in the scrappy bindings just very striking well not to be outdone Louis breslov use similar colors in her blocks but she changed the look entirely by setting them together with black lattice well she also used multicolored thread in the blocks she did some fancy cables in the border well we always recognize Lois's quilts for her bright beautiful colors whoo she just loves them she even selected a bright backing fabric that says love well my almost twin sister sue Bouchard purchased a big stack of fat quarters at market and she turned them into this delightful quilt oh there's polka dots Paisley stripes large prints small prints she put everything together and I just love the vine quilting in the framing border so nice well I like Sue's idea she stitches all of her leftovers together into a backe so she can start out fresh with all new fabric on her next quilts just wonderful so dig into your scraps and strips and have double the fun on twin sisters you you

Channel: Quilt in a Day

Views: 96,424

Rating: 4.8900685 out of 5

Keywords: quilting, eleanor burns, quilt in a day

Id: 9q1jfEKx0JI

Length: 25min 41sec (1541 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 27 2016