Quilting Tutorial Part 2

Hey everyone! Welcome to part two of my quilting tutorial. This is the part where we get to sewin'. When I left off last time we had a whole bunch of 4 1/2" strips of blue, green, and tan fabrics.

Just a small side note - I changed up the size of my quilt a little bit. I decided to do more of an over sized snuggle quilt instead of a twin sized one. That makes the quilt I am working on five squares by six squares (64" x 73") instead of five by seven. So, I will have five squares left over in the end. Who knows, maybe I will make a matching tote.

P2 Step 1 - Match up the green strips with the blue and tan strips until they are all matched. Then sew them together on the long side. Make sure you are using 1/4" seam allowance. Once you have them all sewn together press them open to the blue/tan side. This means you iron them with the blue/tan side up then press the fabrics open.

Now that you have the seams pressed open cut your 4 1/2" rectangles. You should be able to cut nine rectangles from each sewn strip of fabric. I cut 52 blue/green rectangles and 30 brown/green ones. If you are sticking with the original size quilt then you will need 59 blue/green rectangles and 35 brown/green ones. You should still have your two extra blue squares and two extra green squares. We aren't ready to use those yet.

Match up the rctangles as shown and sew together (remember your 1/4" seam allowance). You will have more blue/green rectangles than brown/green ones. Just set those aside. DO NOT sew them together.

Once you have all your squares sewn together you will need to press them open. It doesn't matter which way you press them. I like to be consistent and press them all the same way. Once you have them all pressed open then you need to square them up. Thankfully this quilt isn't really complicated so it won't make a huge difference if your squares aren't exactly 8 1/2" square. Just make sure that they are all equal and square. For example, if you smallest square ends up being 8 1/4" then make them all 8 1/4" square.

If you remember from last time I haven't cut my background fabric yet. I laid out a few pieces to get an idea of what my quilt is looking like so far. I decided to make my strips a little wider than the inch thick I thought originally.

I am going to go 1 1/2" wide instead so I need to cut 2" strips from my background fabric after cutting my 4" border fabric. One small problem? I don't have enough background fabric. I should have purchased 1 3/4 yards instead of 1 1/2 yards. I guess I would have had enough if I would quit changing my mind. Oh well, I cut what I had. I cut 6 - 4" strips (or 7 if you stick with the twin size), and I need 17 - 2" strips (or 21) cut into 8 1/2" rectangles.

I will start sewing with what I have and go back to Joann's sometime this week to pick up the remaining background fabric.

Next up we start piecing our quilt top together and sewing.

Four Square Quilt

Good Friday everyone! I know it has been awhile and I apologize. I am putting the baby stuff to the side for a moment (don't worry I haven't given up on it, just postponing it for now) and working on a new project. A little back story -

I was looking through my weekly Better Homes & Gardens email when I spotted this picture:

Now, the picture was advertising for the headboard, but the quilt is what caught my eye. I love that quilt. It doesn't look too hard to make and it is one of those quilts that are very simple to make larger or smaller depending on what you need. I guesstimated that the squares are probably 4" and the background strips are probably 1" with a 4" band (or frame) around the whole thing. Easy right? Well, I am going to make this quilt and I am also going to take pictures and write a tutorial as I go. I will work on this a little at a time (as I am able) so the tutorial will be in steps spread across several days. I hope you guys don't mind.

First - We need to pick out our fabrics. I looked through Joann's website and picked out a few that I liked. Then went to the store and picked them up. I liked the aqua and lime together but I wasn't digging on the red so I decided to replace it with brown.

And since I was using those colors then I thought this would make a nice backing fabric.

Now, while I was at Joann's I found a light tan fabric that matched my backing fabric nicely and picked it up too. I am making a twin sized quilt and my four squares will consist of one aqua, two lime, and one brown.

I picked up 1 yard of aqua, 1 1/2 yards of lime, 1 yard of brown (1/2 yard for the squares and 1/2 yard for the binding in case you want different colors like I did), 4 yards of backing, and 1 1/2 yards of background fabric (mine is white).

Second - We cut our fabrics. I am incredibly lazy and if there is a way to cut corners then I will do it. Since we are working with a four block square then I can cut out a lot of cutting and sewing by cutting 4 1/2" strips (4" square plus our seam allowance) instead of 4 1/2" squares out of my block fabric. I cut 11 - 4 1/2" strips out of the green and 7 - 4 1/2" strips out of the blue. Then cut two 4 1/2" squares from one of the blue strips and two 4 1/2" squares from one of the green strips. These are our four single square corners. Will will just leave the remaining strips alone for now and I will show you more about this shortcut in the second tutorial.

After I cut my main fabric I started looking at my browns and couldn't decide which I wanted as binding and which I wanted as my fourth block so I laid them out and decided I wanted the darker as my binding and the lighter as my block. The white fabric is my background fabric, but I will be cutting that one later.

The brown fabrics were a lighter weight than the other fabrics so I ironed and starched them to make them stiffer and easier to work with before I cut them. Now, a lot of fabrics aren't put on the bolt straight so when you iron and refold them then they are off by a little, but dang! One and a quarter inch on either side that I couldn't use. It's a good thing that this is my binding so I won't need as much. I wouldn't have had enough if this was my fourth square.

Any who - I cut the 2 1/2" strips for my binding and had just enough. I ended up with 7 - 2 1/2" strips. Then I cut 4 - 4 1/2" strips from the tan fabric.

I guessed my yardage pretty accurately. I didn't have any extra of my browns and only a very small amount of lime and aqua. I will cut my background fabric later so I don't know how I did guessing that one. I HATE cutting so I try to break it up a bit. I will sew my squares before I cut my background fabric.

In our next installment we will start sewing. Then I will explain why we cut 4 1/2" strips instead of 4 1/2" squares.

Have a good weekend and I hope to have some more for you next week.