Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC. And I’ve got a great project for you today. Let’s take a look at this quilt behind me. Isn’t this fun? I love the black, white and red fabric, a very classic look. And this is traditional nine patch and hourglass blocks. And I have a new way for you to make those. So that’s going to be fun. So to make this quilt what you’re going to need is 25 ten inch squares. And we have used Cherry Twist by Canvas Studios for Benertex. You’re also going to need some background squares, some plain white ones for this quilt. You’re going to need 22 of those. And, and so you can use them from a pack of ten inch squares or you can use yardage. If you’re going to use yardage it is a yard and ¾ and you’re just going to cut ten inch squares out of that. You’re also going to need a half a yard for this inner border right here. And for this outer border out here you’re going to need a yard and a ¼ and that’s a nice six inch border out there. And our backing, let’s take a look at that before we get too far. Ah look at that pretty print on the back of the quilt. Isn’t that fun? So for the backing you’re going to need 4 ½ yards and that’s with vertical seams. So let me show you how to make this because this is fun.

So normally when we make a nine patch and an hourglass, you have to have two different cuts of fabric. Well we’re going to do it all from a ten inch square. So let me show you how to do that. You’re going to line them up right on top of each other, a print one with a solid one. And we’ll just cut them at the same time. You’re going to cut a 2 ½ inch strip off both sides right here. So here’s our 2 ½ right here. We’re going to cut this and we’re going to set this up here. And then we’re going to turn this and cut it off the side. Alright, just like that. Now we’re going to take these two strips right here and we’re going to cut those into 2 ½ inch squares and those are going to be the squares for our nine patch blocks. So let me cut here 2 ½ . And I’m just now going to lay this one on top of here like this. And I’m going to cut them at the same time. 2 ½, 2 ½, get as many as you can out of each little strip that you cut off. Make sure this is lined up here nice and straight. I better move those out. There we go. And then this last little one right there. All of a sudden when I was looking at it, it looked like wait a minute, this could get a little wonky. Nope that’s good shape. I’ll just trim off those little peaks there. So you’re going to set these aside for you nine patch blocks because you’re going to want to mix those all up.

So these are going to make all our nine patch blocks right here. And you’re going to want to wait and cut them all out because you’re going to want to mix them up. Now from the square that’s left it should be a 7 ½ inch square. And we are going to make our hourglass blocks out of that and so we’re going to draw a line side to side on this and sew on either side. So let me draw my line here. And you can iron this as well if you would rather. Iron a line I mean. And so now what we’re going to do is we’re going to sew a quarter of an inch on either side. And I’m going to look to make sure. Nope, look at that. I forgot to put them right sides together . So let’s put them right sides together and then we’re going to sew on either side of this line. And that’s going to give us two half square triangles. Alright here we go. So we’re just going to sew down one side and up the other. Make sure my thread doesn’t get caught there. Line your presser foot up with the edge of the line and sew right down it. Alright now we’re going to cut these in half just like this and press these open. So I”m just going to set my seam right here. And I don’t know if you guys saw that but I used a frixon pen to mark the line. And so when I ironed that it just disappeared. That’s what’s really fun about these pens is that it won’t matter because it’s in the seam. But you know I just get tickled every time I iron it. It’s like whoosh, there it goes, there it goes.

Alright so now what we’re going to do is we are going to draw a line on the back of one of these half square triangles again because we’re making hourglasses which means we’re going to put them together. And we want to swap these out. We don’t want to use the same square. So I have some other squares over here that are done. And because you want your hourglasses to be different. So I”m going to match this up. Let me see here. Maybe these back here. Let’s see if I have enough contrast. Maybe this one. Oh they’re kind of bright. That will work. So what we’re going to do now is we’re going to lay our half square triangles so the colors go in opposite direction. And this middle seam is going to nest up. And you can feel right here that there’s no room in between. Your squares should line up and we’re going to sew again a quarter of an inch on either side of that line. Alright, here we go. If you feel a little unsure about that middle juncture and you want to put a pin in there just feel free to do that. Alright now we’re going to cut this one again. And this is going to give us our hourglass block. There we go. So let’s see, here we go. Look at that. So isn’t that fun? So we’re going to press these open, actually no we’re not because I’m using a new ruler to square them and you don’t have to press open to do that. So I’m using the Clearly Perfect seam trimmer. And I want to square these half square triangles, these hourglass blocks, actually I want to square them to 6 ½. So you’re going to lay your stitch line on the stitch line of this. And then this line right here also goes on the stitch line. So it’s able to keep that center of your hourglass perfectly centered. And so again stitch line on the stitch line and this line on our seam line going up. We’re going to trim these little corners right here and come up the sides like this and down the other side. And that makes it so easy to trim them up and it should be just perfect now and perfectly centered as well. And it is. Alright so let’s go one more. Again I’m lining my stitch line, my stitch line on their stitch line and making sure that this middle line is also connected on the stitch line. Just like this. My seam seems to be leaning a little bit to one side. So I hope that works out alright. And we’re coming down both sides. And this should be perfect. And it is. Alright. So let’s press these. I have a whole bunch of stuff here. Lots of stuff. Let me get these out of the way so you can see. Alright.

So now we’re going to make these a stack of these and set them aside. And we need to work on our nine patch blocks. The nine patch block assembly is going to be super easy for us because they’re already cut in 2 ½ inch squares. And we just want to make sure that we line them out so they’re right. Which means our center square is going to have, nope sorry, these are the outside ones. Our center square is going to have the color in the middle. There we go, like that. And then this outer edge over here we’re going to have a white in the center and two colors on either side. And we’re just going to lay those on there, look at it. Because you’re dealing with 2 ½ inch squares every block you’re custom making so it’s, you get to decide where all the blocks go. So let’s sew this row together and then we can connect it to those. They’re all made the same way. Just a quarter of an inch sewing your squares together. And when I make a lot of blocks like this out of squares what I like to do is I sew them in twos. So I’ll sew a print and a background, a print and a background. And I’ll chain piece them all. And then I’ll go back through and I’ll add the color to two sides and a white to the other side. And if I’ve completely confused you I’m sorry. I’ll show you what I mean. Alright so I have my, here let me press this down. And I”m actually going to press this one to the dark side. And when you press to the dark side, when you’re dealing with white fabric that means that you want your seams back here to come on the dark side because if they come over into the middle on the white then those seams are going to show. So the middle one are pressed in which means they’re going to nest very nicely. So when I’m talking about chain sewing them through I’m going to a print and a white like this and I’m going to sew a whole bunch of those. Then to two of them I’m going to add the color to the other side. And to the other two, the other one, the middle one I’m going to add a white to the other one side. I hope that makes sense. Because you need three of these to make your nine patch. So let’s sew these together. And I’m just going to bring my middle center over here and I’m going to line up my top edge, take a few stitches, make sure it’s lined up. And then I’m going to lift up my, my row and make sure that those are nested well. And then I’m just going to sew down to that seam, stop, make sure the next seam is nested well, sew down to that and then continue on to the bottom. And then we’re going to do the other side as well, doing exactly the same thing. Sew a couple of stitches up here and then make sure that’s. Alright now we’ll press these open. Alrighty.

So then you have your nine patch blocks over here and you have your hourglass blocks and let’s look at the quilt to see how they go together. So on the quilt here you can see our hourglass blocks this first row they’re laying sideways and it goes hourglass, nine patch, hourglass, nine patch, hourglass, nine patch, hourglass, nine patch. Now the next row down you’re going to stagger them and you’re also going to flip your hourglass block because we want this to square up. We want this to make that pattern. So let’s look at how we’re going to do that. Just clean this off a little bit. Alright so we’re going to start with our hourglass up and down, nope sideways, there we go. And we’re going to do, we’re just going to do some short rows so you can see how this is going to go. So sideways, sideways and like this. Our next row we’re going to start with our, our nine patch and then we’re going to have our hourglass but it’s going to go up and down. So see how that starts to form the square on there. So again a nine patch. Our nine patches, you can turn those any way you want, they’re going to be the same just like that. And then we’re going to come down here. Our next row. And it’s going to be sideways again because half of the nine patch is surrounded by a white and half of them are surrounded by color. So just watch which way, you know, watch which way you’re putting your hourglasses in there because that’s going to matter because we want to form, these are the squares. We want to form a white square and we want to form a colored square.

And so it’s just a great way of making a nine patch and an hourglass out of one single, trying to get it here, out of one ten inch square. So we hope you enjoyed this tutorial on the 9 Patch Hourglass block from the MSQC.