Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC. And I’ve got a fun project for you today and it all started with this pillow. This was a gift my friend Courtney gave me for my birthday. I love the idea that it was our state. I just fell in love with it. And if you have a pillow you’ve got to have a quilt, right? So I came up with this quilt and I can hardly wait to show you. Let’s take a look at it. Isn’t it fun? We’ve got six across, seven down but look at the little states. So this is really fun to make and I can hardly wait to show you how. So to make this quilt what you’re going to need is one packet of ten-inch squares of print and one packet of ten inch squares of solid. We used Valerie Wells line Murmur for Free Spirit fabrics. You’re going to need a little bit of inner border, about ¾ of a yard. For your outer border, this is a nice big six-inch border and you’re going to need 1 ½ yard. Oh, let’s look at the back. So look at this back, the big print is on the back and it just looks beautiful with those hummingbirds. So the cool thing about Valerie Wells fabric is how she actually designs it. And what she does is she actually carves the design on a rubber block and then stamps it to make it. And it’s just amazing to see that happen. So look at all these prints. These she actually carved herself and then stamped them on the blocks. And so that is just really fascinating to me and really a fun little thing to know about it.

So when you go to make this quilt what you’re going to do is you’re going to choose twenty states that you love. Now if you want to do the whole thing states because you’ve been to all the states and you love the states, you can do that. What we have on here is twenty states. And these are states that mean something to me. And, and then in between each one we’ve placed another one of the fabrics. So we used all 42 pieces of print but you’re also going to use 21 pieces of white for the background fabrics. So we printed all the states. You get all the states in the patterns. We have actually folded the lines right here so that you can see them better when you go to trace them. Now we’re going to use Heat N Bond light. You’re going to need about 2 ¾ yards for that. And we’re just going to lay these on here like this and trace through. Now one of the cool things about this pattern is these patterns are already completely reversed for you. And so we’re just going to go ahead and trace them. And, and I am just going to come around this side, I’m just going to trace it. I hope you can see through the camera you really can see these so you don’t really need to, you know like we used to stand at the window and things like that. Some of us are lucky enough to have a lightbox, that works but we hope that we made this good enough so that you can actually just see it and do it. So you’ll see I’m not following every squiggle exactly but I”m pretty close.

So now what we’re going to do is I”m going to pick a color that represents Missouri to me. And I’m going to go ahead and trim this. Now if I were, what I did with the Heat N Bond light was I cut them into eight-inch strips because none of the states are bigger than eight inches. And so I would go ahead and trace several on here so that, you know, so that you can trace several at a time. Alright, so I’m just trimming off some of these edges. There we go. And, and now we’re just going to iron it onto our, our fabric. So we’re going to iron it on the back side of our fabric just like this. We’re going to put it on and then we’re going to just use our iron and read your directions because it doesn’t take very long for this to set up. It’s pretty quick. I mean if you like to save the edges you can trim it a little closer but mostly you just kind of want to kind of trim it out. And then, and then iron it on there. So now we have it ironed on and we’re going to cut this out. And I’m just going to trim this around here. I mean I don’t think anybody is going to look at my little trimming lines up there and go, oh! She missed that. I hope not anyway. So the fun thing to me about this quilt is that you can choose the states you want. Again these states up here mean something to me. I have grandchildren living in some of them. Some of them are places where I did Jenny on the Road and places this year where Jenny on the Road is going to happen. And some of them are places we’ve lived. I just think it’s a fun memory quilt and a great size quilt to put in your car when you travel because everybody needs a quilt in their car, right? Alright I’m coming around this, we call this the boot heel down here in Missouri. Now you’ll see on my little state of Missouri behind me I have a little star, I mean a little heart. I said that so sweet, I have a little star. I have a little heart actually. And the little heart is where we live in Missouri. And I also think adding the addition of a heart to your blocks is a fun idea too because it, you know, maybe that’s where something special happened for you. So let me just come around this other side. We’re almost done here.

Alright so now what I’m going to do is I’m just going to roll this back so that the paper releases and then I can pull the paper off. Now if you pull your paper off you want to look at your fabric. It should be shiny like that. That means the glue has adhered to that and we can just glue it onto a background piece. Alright so now we’re going to take our background piece. And I seriously, so now we turned this around and it’s going the right direction. So again, all these pattern pieces are already reversed. You don’t have to do that. So now I’m just going to look on here. And I’m just going to make sure it fits on here. Not going to do any measuring or anything. I’m just going to kind of center it up. I’m going to lay it over here and I’m going to press it on. Just take a couple of seconds and press it. Alright now what we’re going to do is you want to do some sort of stitching around this to keep this on so that when you wash it they don’t come off. And so I”m going to do a, you know what is that stitch called, the applique stitch. I’m going to do an applique stitch. You can do a tiny zig zag. You could do a straight stitch along here, whatever you want to do. So I’m going to come along here and find my applique stitch.

So I found the blanket stitch here and mine is an automatic stitch so it sets at 2.5 wide and 2.0 long. So we’re going to go ahead and use that. And I’m going to start at the bottom. I always think it’s kind of easier to start at the bottom. And then I’m just going to line that up. Now what you want to do is you want to watch where your needle goes down because it’s going to take a few stitches and then come over and grab that. And you want those stitches to be right along the edge. So I’m going to come along this edge right here and just do my little blanket stitch. This is probably the hardest part for me because I’m so impatient and I just want it to go fast. Alright now I’m at the end and I’m just going to leave my needle down and I’m going to pivot and I”m going to start up the other side. So it occurred to me as I’m going along that you may need some tips as you’re going around all these little curves because there is very few states that are just square, well Kansas, Kansas. But it still has a little piece up here in the corner. But when you go through these little curves you just want to slow down and you just kind of want to stop. When you lift up your presser foot, I always have my machine set so the needle stays down so that it doesn’t move. And so I’m just going to kind of come around this corner. And I don’t go in and out of every single curve. I just, I just kind of go along the edge like this. I”ll show you when I’m all done. But you just kind of do your best. These are going to be quilted over the top of them so they’re not going to go anywhere. But we just want to, you just want to do your best and you’ll see in a minute. Mine are not perfect. But I just think it’s, it’s quick and easy to be able to do it this way. And then we’re just going to sew over where we started. I like to kind of sew over where we started and then we begin.

Alright so let’s take a close look at this. And, and this looks pretty good, it looks pretty good. You can see I missed the line a little bit over here. But again I’m just going to be kind to myself about this. I’m not going to worry about it too much because I know it’s going to be quilted right over the top. So let’s take a look at the quilt behind me. So we’ve got, we’ve got a fabric, a straight square and then a state, and a straight, you know a plain square and then a state. And we did that all the way across. So we have six across, seven rows down. Now you may have been and have way more states that are familiar to you that you want to put in your quilt and if you want to do that you can fill this whole thing up with states. Also, I was thinking for people who live in other countries, I mean it could be a country quilt or something like that. I mean just your province or whatever it is, you know, you can just do this with the same thing. I mean it’s just a really cool idea and a fun idea.

So I just want to mention a few of these states and why they’re my favorites. This one, I was born in California and I still have grandchildren there. This is Florida and I love Florida and we visit there often. This is Arkansas, I also have grandchildren in Arkansas. Of course, here’s Missouri and again I put a little heart for right where we’re from. And this is Oklahoma over here. But this one right here, I just want you to look at this one because this is Oregon and this is where Valerie Wells lives. She has a shop called the Stitching Post up in Sisters, Oregon. And I just want to say that this block and this bird reminds me of her. Her arms are open to new ideas. They’re open for love. They’re open for whatever comes her way. And this just reminds me so much of here. So don’t be afraid to fussy cut. And you know depending upon the fabric you use you could have each state could have an even deeper meaning to you. So I hope you have fun with this. I hope you create your own, your own car quilt. We’re calling this Road Trip and we hope you enjoyed this tutorial from the MSQC.