Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. And I’ve got a really fun project for you today. As a matter of fact it was so fun for me that I couldn’t stop making the blocks and I made an additional little quilt which I’ll show you later. So let’s take a look at this quilt. Isn’t this fun? This is a happy little block and you’ll be just really tickled at how we made it because it’s just quick and easy. So to make this quilt what you’re going to need is one packet of ten inch squares. And we have used this darling Night Riviera by Nancy Ring for Marcus Fabrics. You’re also going to need a packet of background squares and an additional ¾ yard of background for your first inner border. You’re going to need, out here this is a nice big six inch border for your outer border and you’re going to need a yard and a half for that. On the backing you’re going to need 4 ¾ yards. And look at this nice big print. Now this big print is in here but you can see we weren’t able to see all of it because we’ve cut them into smaller pieces. So I love this nice big print. Just really pretty on the back.

So to make this quilt you’re going to take one of the prints and one of the solids. You’re going to stack them up and we’re going to cut this into five inch squares. So this quilt will actually work very well with charms. I wanted to keep four squares together that were the same color so I went with a layer cake so then I can just cut them into fourths like this. Because this is a five inch ruler I can just lay this right along the edge and cut both directions. And I’m going to have four, five inch squares. So just like this and then what you’re going to do is you’re going to stack up your four colors and stack up your whites like this and one more. And set these aside. I went through and cut my whole layer cake up. But you want to make sure that you’ve got one block down first. So let’s take you through that.

So what I’m going to do is I’m going to take four of these white squares. So we’re going to stack them up so they are all pretty even. Now this block is going to be squared so you don’t have to be perfect about it. And let me move these things out of the way so you can see a little better. So we’re going to do four white squares right here. And I’m going lay this template just about in the middle. And I’m just going to kind of eyeball it like this, make sure it’s centered up. Now if you want to find the center exactly there is a line that comes through. You can fold your fabric in half and line it up. But the eyeballing worked for me pretty good because again we’re going to square this after it’s done. So we’re going to take this and we’re going to cut and we’re going to cut all the way off so just keep going. Move this out of the way. And then you can turn this so it’s easy for you to cut, whichever way you’re cutting to make it easy. And again I’m lining it up on this edge and I’m just going to cut off this side, just like that. Alright now I’m going to stack these pieces just like this and I’m going to do the same thing to my colored blocks. So I’m going to get four of those. Let’s see one, two, three, four. And I found it pretty easy to cut about four at a time. That was pretty easy. So again I’m going to lay these right here. I’m going to set my, oops I have one that’s way off. Let’s straighten that guy up. There we go. Alright so now we’re going to lay this right in the middle. I’m going to lay this right over. That looks pretty good to me. Maybe a hair over. And again I’m just going to cut the side like this, move this out of the way and cut this side. And you’ll notice I didn’t turn it on this. Now some of us can cut with both hands and if you can do that, do that. Alright so now I have these two sets, I’m going to swap these two middle pieces. That means this one is going to have white outsides, this one is going to have colored outsides. Now what I do with these is I actually chain piece these through so at the end I have four blocks at a time.

So what I’m going to do is I’m going to take these two and I’m going to take this piece right here and I’m going to line it up on my piece right here and I’m going to match up my corners and my corners. And I’m going to sew a quarter of an inch all the way down. Now for me visually, I actually like to flip this over. So let me show you what I’ve got here. I’ll move this up here. I like to have this white piece on the bottom. I always remember, the narrow bottom meets up with the wide bottom. And that helps keep me on track. So I like to lay them like this so I can see my corner matches up there. And it’s just barely off here and we’re going to sew a quarter of an inch down. And we’re going to do this to the whole stack. So we’re just going to chain piece in between. I’m going to lay these in here, a quarter of an inch. And we’re going to do that one and then I bring these over here and I flip them the right, the right directions so that I make sure that I have them going the right direction and that way I don’t make a mistake because I now have got one right then I’ll get them all right. So I just look at that and we’re going to go right down the side. Here’s the next one. I had to lick my finger. Sorry about that. Sometimes I can’t get ahold of that fabric and one more. And again this edge, this point, I put right on that point. And generally when I’m doing this I’ll go ahead and do the other set as well because it makes two corresponding blocks. But I’m just going to show you this one for simplicity and time. I clip those apart. Now I’m going to iron this piece back. This was important to me, the ironing part. You know, sometimes I go right through it without ironing and iron at the end. But I like to do this ironing part because I knew that it would lay so much nicer. And the areas that we’re putting them on, you know, the top part is kind of tiny so we just want to make sure that we iron these nice and flat. And then we’re going to put our piece on the other side. So again you want to make sure that you’ve got it going in the right direction and we’re going to chain piece these right through. So let me get ahold of this guy. I’m going to put him on here. I leave my big piece on the bottom. And you might want to see this right here. See how I’ve got this? This is lined up here. But see how I have this little edge right here, I just leave that on. We’re going to sew a quarter of an inch on this side right here. And then at the end I’ll just kind of snip that off. So don’t let that fool you. Alright, we’ll do all four of these, one after the other. And here’s the next one. Line up that edge. Sew a quarter of an inch. And there’s the last one. There we go. Now we’re going to clip them apart and press again. . Let me make sure this lays back. Let me make sure they’re all going the same direction so then I can just lift them up and I know they’re going to iron the way I want them to. When you sew two seams on the sides, this is going to get much smaller than it is longer and we need to square these up. We want these to be squares because we’re going to put them together like a four patch.

And so see right here in the middle of my mat, it has these smaller lines, that becomes crazy for my eyes. I have a really hard time working with that so I’m going to move out here to the edge of my, where the squares are bigger. I don’t know, some people may have this same problem. But for me it’s like when it gets the little lines my whole brain just goes, wah, and I can’t see anything. So what I want to do here is I want this to be four inches and it is almost five in length. And it’s very close to four side to side. And so here’s what I do, I’m going to cut so that I have at least about a little more about a half an inch from this peak. This point right here I’m going to lay my ruler about a half an inch from this peak right here and I’m just going to trim that off. This is going to become my straight side. So I’m going to flip this around now like this. And I”m going to count over four. One, two, three, four, and I’m going to lay my ruler on here like this. So there’s my ruler on that, see it’s just little bits that you’re cutting off. Now I turn it this way because I want it to be exactly square. And you can see it’s barely over the line. But that barely makes a difference so we’re just going to trim that off and then I’m going to trim this one off as well right here on this edge. Alright. So we’re going to do this to all four of our blocks. And I want to walk you through another one because this is key.

So again I’m kind of laying this on the four right here. See how these are off. That doesn’t matter to me. What I’m measuring from is this point. And I”m doing kind of an eyeball. And I”m going up about a half an inch like this. And then I”m going to line it up on the line, come straight over four. One, two, three, four, lay my ruler down like this. And this will get very rote to you and you’ll start doing it very quickly because it will click and you’ll go ok, ok this is what I need to do. And then I kind of even it up, you know, put my space, the most space, you know, kind of center it up so I have even amounts on either side of my four inch line. And trim that off like that. And we have two more to go. So again I’m just going to whiz through this. Line this up on my line, count over four, trim this off, straighten it up. Make sure I’m four on either side. This one is a little bit wonky. See how it’s coming in on this side. So I”m going to center this bottom. And then I’m going to trim up this edge right here. This one I’m only going to trim this one side. There we go. And this is my last one here. Again save about half an inch, line it up on the line, come down here four inches, make my cut. And then we’re going to square up the sides. A little bit on each side of that line, just like that. And then we have four of these blocks that are identical. Alright.

Now let me show you how you put this together because this is really fun. So what you’re going to do is you’re going to put them together. And one is going to be with the wide part down. I call it teepee, teepee down, teepee sideways. And then, this is going to be the same. But when you turn this around, it’s going to look like this. And it’s going to make a little bit of a pinwheel kind of look. So we’re going to do these exactly the same way. Teepee down, teepee sideways. And we’re going to sew them together a quarter of an inch. So here we go with that. Lay them right on top of each other. And this just goes together, then like a four patch. So we’re going to lay this on here, sew across. I’m going to bring in my other piece and sew it down the side as well. There we go. Alright let’s press these open. And I”m just going to press this way and then I’ll press this way, just like this. Alright, so then we’re ready to put them together like this. And we’re going to match that center seam. So I’m going to lay my blocks together, take a few of my, you know, stitches to hold it down. Line up my center. Sew a quarter of an inch down and continue across. And that is your block.

So some of us get worried about losing our points and so I thought we’d get in real close and take a look at why this matters. When you’re cutting this right here, you want to make sure that you have it at least a half an inch up here. And so you’re going to trim that off. And you can, you know, you can measure it from this way and cut out here if you like. I kind of eyeball it and then come in here. And I make sure that I have at least a half an inch out here when I cut this off. Now the reason that matters is that you’re going to then take a quarter inch seam. You’re going to lay your seam, your seam is going to come in like this. And see how we have enough room here if we take a quarter inch seam that we save our point. So let’s take a look at these two blocks right here. Now this block right here, this is a really good example of doing it exactly right. I’ve got a half an inch from this point right here. So when I take my quarter inch seam, I”m not going to lose that point at all. On this one over here, it’s a little less room and so I have my half an inch comes into the point so I’m just going to have to be super careful here that I’m right on that quarter of an inch so I don’t lose that point. Because the points make everything fun and whimsical. So if you will just leave an half an inch above the top of your point, it’s going to be easy sailing for you. And it’s just going to go together so quick.

Look how cute that is. That’s the block and honestly when you finish them, they’re just like little presents. Now I’ll show you here what they look like when you get one of each color. So here we have, this is the green. And we have the green with the white background and then we have the white with the green background. So you’ll get two of these blocks out of every one that you do. So when I sew this one together, it’s going to be the color on the outside with the white in the middle. So let’s look how I put these together. So what I did back here was I alternated them. I have the color on the outside, the white on the outside, the color, the white, the color, the white just like that. Just lined them up exactly like that. You know, made sure my colors were mixed up and spread around. But you can see this one goes here, you know, every other one goes where the white is. And so when we put them together, literally I’m going to look for a colored one. So let’s look, oh I don’t want purple next to it. How about this black. So I’m going to go with this black, and then I need the white and the colored. See how that’s going to go together like that. Let’s look at how many blocks we have. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine across, nine down. There’s 81 blocks in here. That means you’re going to use 41 of your ten inch squares to make this. And I kind of like that because there was a square that was like almost white in this and I don’t like to put those in and so it let me, it gave me the option to not do that. And so I really enjoyed it.

I enjoyed making this so much in fact that I went on with some more blocks and I made this little baby quilt. Look at how cute this is. I mean isn’t this just a darling, darling size for a baby quilt. It’s just so cute. I also put, look at this, I put that cuddle on the back. And I love when cuddle gets quilted because you can see the little pattern. And I put little butterflies on this. It’s a fun and easy quilt to make and I hope you enjoy making it. We’re calling it Around the Square. And we hope you enjoyed this tutorial from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.