Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC. And I’ve got a great project for you today. Isn’t this quilt darling? Let’s take a look at it. These little X’s are so cute. They’re defined very well. I love how they come together. I love the fabric. I love this piece right here particularly. There’s jacks on it. You can see the little jacks. I used to play jacks when I was a girl. And I was pretty good at it, if I do, if I do say so myself. So to make this quilt what you’re going to need is four charm packs those are five inch squares. And we have used Mixed Bag 2017 by Studio M for Moda. You can also, if you only have ten inch squares, you can obviously use those and just cut them into fourths and that will work as well. For the background you’re going to need four yards of fabric. And that includes all the little squares that are around your X’s and this first 2 ½ inch border out here. For the outer border, this is a 5 ½ inch border. And we’ve used a yard and a quarter. And we’ve used the same fabric on the back. And you’re going to need 4 ¾ yards for this backing. And I mean it’s just a darling little print. And it’s going to make a quilt that is 69 by 78 about, about, that much. But that’s a pretty fun size quilt to make. So let me show you how to do this. Because this is really easy.

Alright so let me show you how to make this quilt. So the first thing you’re going to do is take your four charms or cut your ten inch piece. I’ll go ahead and cut this one so you can see how I did that. Just like this. We’re going to cut it this way and we’re going to turn these and cut them the other way as well. That’s going to give us four five inch squares. So remember you can use four charm packs or one pack of ten inch squares because you need four for each X. Alright so then what we’re going to do is we’re going to take our background fabric right here and we’re going to cut a three inch strip of that. Now I tried using pre cuts with 2 ½ but it wasn’t enough to really set the X off and pop so we went with yardage on this. And we’re doing three inch strips. So let’s cut a three inch strip on this like this. And mine you’ll notice, mine is folded in half and then in half up here like this. And I do that just so I have a better handle on the cutting. It makes it easier for me to keep control of my fabric. Then we’re going to come over here and we’re going to cut three inch squares. And I’m going to trim off my selvedge edge right here. And I’ve just left it folded and that means I’m going to get four with every cut. So I’m going to trim these off and I’m going to scoot these back because we want three inch squares. You’re going to need 12 of these for each block so there’s one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. We’ll just discard those. And these are the blocks that you’re going to need to make each individual block.

So now to make the block what we’re going to do is we’re going to take our five inch charm. And we are going to put squares on three sides. And because our squares are larger we have to add the two opposite sides and then add this side last. So I’m going to take my three inch squares here and rather than draw a line I am just going to press a line. And so you’re going to need three for each square. So what I’m going to do is, you can press it with the iron or you can finger press it. And I’m just going to finger press mine right here. And then what we’re going to do is we’re going to put a square on two opposite sides. So we’re going to sew on the line on this side and on the line on this side. Then what we’ll have to do is trim these off, iron them back and add our third square. So let’s go ahead and go to the sewing machine and we’re going to stitch these down.

And I have them laid on there so nicely and I’m just going to follow my press line and sew down this side. You just sew corner to corner. And then I’m going to come over here and do the same thing on the opposite side. Now my fold didn’t go right to the corner on that so I’m just kind of eyeballing this. And I think that’s going to look pretty good. And then what I’m going to do here is I’m going to trim off these corners right here. And you can do this with a scissor or a rotary cutter. And then we’re going to press these back right here. And I’m just rolling them back from the center. And then we have to add our third square. So then we’re going to come here and we’re going to put this on this side. It actually doesn’t really matter what side you put it on. You just need one open end. And so then we’re going to sew on our line across this way as well. And you’re going to do this to all four squares. Alright so now I’ve got that last square on there and I’m going to trim this off right here and press it back. And you’re going to make four of these. And this is going to give enough clearance here so that when we take our quarter inch seam we don’t lose our points. So now I’ve done three more just like it.

And what we’re going to do is we’re going to put them together so that it comes together just like this as a four patch like an X. And we’re going to put all of our, all of the sides that don’t have a white square on them to the middle like this. And it makes that X block. So let’s go ahead and sew these together. This is just like sewing a basic four patch. We’re going to sew our two sides. And I’m just going to make sure that, put my ends together. Make sure that my two little sides are together, you know where these meet together right here. I want to make sure that they are pretty close to matching up. And you’re going to do this to this side as well. Once we have these two done you should have two pieces that are like this. They should look just like this and then we’re going to sew those two together, matching our center seam. And I’m going to do this before I iron so I can make one seam go one way and one seam go the other. So now I like to anchor it, get a few anchoring stitches and then I’m going to come over here and I’m going to make sure that these two seams are nesting. And then I will sew to that point and then match up my outer corners as well. . And then we are ready to press. So we’ll come over here. Now one of the fun things about this is because you’re putting the same four blocks together that center point, it isn’t pivotal. It doesn’t, you know if you get it off it’s not going to show. But you know, I mean the closer you can get the better you are. Because it’s the same fabric though it doesn’t show. But this is our little X block. Isn’t that cute?

So then, now we’re ready to put our quilt together. You’re going to do this to all 42 of your squares. And see how, see how my square, actually if you look at it closely, it’s a little wonky out here. It doesn’t hurt to come along with your ruler and kind of straighten that up a little bit. You know that’s just going to make for a straighter quilt and I kind of put my ruler on the corners. That side is fine. These are all pretty fine. Just that one had a humpty lump on the side. So this one I’m just going to take a little bit off these edges. And then it just makes a nice square block, just like that. Then when we’re ready to put them together we’re just going to lay them together. We’re going to have 42 of these and we’re going to put them together in rows of six. So six in each row. Look how fun these are. Just like this. And we will just sew them together I mean just like we’re going to lay this one on this one and sew it together. You want to put these up on your design, design wall to make sure that you have a good smattering of color. You know that you have your lights and darks mixed up very well and they’re all together. And you’re just going to make six rows of six in each row. And then you’re going to sew your rows together. It goes together very simply and just very easily.

Let’s look at it one more time. We have one, two, three, four, five, six, in each row, seven rows down. And it just makes this darling quilt. I just think this is so fun. Such a great X block. And really pops the X because of the squares that we’ve put around it. So we hope you enjoyed this quilt. We’re actually calling it All My X’s. And that’s for all of us that have a little history, All My X’s. So we hope you enjoyed this tutorial on All My X’s from the MSQC.