Hi everybody. It’s Jenny from the MSQC. And I’ve got a fun project for you today. This is an old block called the Susannah. And let’s take a look at this quilt behind me. Isn’t this fun? Now for me it’s really fun because when you see the old blocks they are not in these kind of colors. They’re real scrappy. They’re real earthy. And so when you see an old block in these kind of colors it just makes it really fun. So to make this quilt what you’re going to need is one packet of 2 ½ inch strips or 40 of them. And we’ve used Poppy Celebration by Cynthia Colter for Wilmington Prints. You’re also going to need two packs or 80 strips of background fabric. We’ve used this black here. You can also do that in yardage. The yardage amount is 4 ½ yards or again it’s two strips. Your, your inner border here is going to be ½ a yard. And your outer border here is going to be a yard and a half. And it just makes a really, really fun quilt. It makes a pretty big quilt. The quilt is 76 by 86. So let me show you how we did this.

So to make this block we’re really talking about this little block right here. Four of these makes one of big blocks right here. This makes the big block right here. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to take a strip, and I’ve got one right here. And we are just going to pull this out of here. And let me move these out of the way. So now you have your strip right here. And what we’re going to do first is we’re going to cut off our little selvedge ends right here. We just don’t want those to end up in our quilt somewhere. And then I’m going to cut this fold right here. And then we’re going to have two separate pieces. Out of these pieces, the first one you’re going to cut 4 ½ inch pieces. So I like to fold them in half so that I have less cutting area and I get more cuts every time I cut, I get more cuts. So I’m going to lay this on here. These rectangles need to be 4 ½ inches. So we’re going to count, one, two, three, four and a half. And we are going to do that to this strip right here. So now we’ve got our half right here and one, two, three, four. And we’re going to go ahead and cut that right there. That’s going to give us four 4 ½ inch rectangles. We’re going to set those aside. That is part of making our block.

The other piece right here, we are going to sew to a background square. So let me grab one over here. Our background we’ve used black. I’ve already cut them in half. And we’re just going to go ahead and put these together and sew a quarter of an inch right down the side. I’m going to line up my presser foot along the edge. I have my stitch set so that it sews a quarter of an inch from there. And I’m just going to sail down the side of this. And keep on going. Almost there. Alright there we are. Now, now what we’re going to do is we are going to cut these in 2 ½ inch segments. Whenever you’re going to do, whenever you do a strip set like this with the two pieces and you’re going to cut 2 ½ inch segments, it’s always easy to cut before you iron. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to straighten up my edge right here. Just like that. And then I’m going to cut these in 2 ½ inch segments all along here. And just go ahead and cut up my whole little thing. So see here I’ve got 2 ½ and I’m counting over, one, two and a half. I have this nice little half inch on my ruler which makes that really easy. And you’re going to need four of these for each block. Alright so I’ve got some here. Let’s go over to the ironing board and press them open. Let’s stick these down here and get them out of the way. Alright set our seams, put our dark fabric to the top, that helps us iron to the dark side so it doesn’t show through. So our seam doesn’t show through the fabric and we are going to iron all of these.

Now we just need four for our block. Oop those are just extras. So here’s our four, one, two, three, four. And now what we’re going to do is we are going to attach this 4 ½ inch rectangle to the other side. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to put this here and we’re going to attach the rectangle on this side. So it’s going to make a little block just like that. So let’s go over to the sewing machine and we’re going to do that four times. Alright, again, a quarter of an inch right along that side. And these you can chain piece, they’re easy. So I’m just going to go ahead and sew these on and I’ll meet you right back here.

Now I’ve got all these done and we’re going to press them open. Again, setting my seams and just rolling back. And one more. Alright now what we’re going to do is really we’re only going to use one of these in each block because we’re mixing them all up and they’re scrappy. But what we have to do first is we have to snowball this outer corner right here. So we’re going to take our 2 ½ inch square right here. We’re going to press it so we have a sew line. We’re going to add this over here to the corner. And we’re going to stitch directly diagonally side to side on that. And you’re going to do that with all your blocks like this. And your blocks will end up in a, you know, you’re just going to stack them in a big stack because you’re going to mix them all up. Alright so here’s, here’s our little block. We’re going to trim this piece off. We’re going to iron this back. That’s our block. That’s how you make that.

Alright so now when you’re ready to put these together you’re going to grab your whole stack of them because you’ve done this to all your blocks. You’re going to grab the whole stack and you’re going to mix them up. And you’re going to give it a scrappy look. And you’re going to turn all of these corners to the center so it makes the diamond. And that right there is the Susannah, oop wait, <laughs> almost got me there. This is the Susanna block right here. And then you put it together just like a four patch. So let’s go ahead and put that together. We’re going to go over to the sewing machine. Just sew twos and then sew our rows of twos together. Here we go. One more. And I’m just chain piecing these which means sewing one after the other. And then I’m going to open them up and they should be right in the right place to sew right together. And they are. You can see my two little pieces connecting. We’re just going to fold them over and sew that together. You can match up all your little seams so you make sure your block stays nice and square. Mostly it’s the edge and the middle. And this black actually is a little hard for me to see so I just did that by feel. You know you can feel when your fabrics are nice and tight together. So we’ll see what happens. Because I couldn’t actually see it. Sometimes you know some of those colors get hard on our eyes. Oop there we go. That looks pretty good. And this right here is the Susannah block. Isn’t that cute? It’s just a cute little block.

So how we put ours together is we used a sashing in between which means whatever size your block ends up, that’s the size you’re going to cut your sash. And we have, I have one here where I’ve sewn the sash on. Right here. And you can see, see the sash just attaches and then you’re going to attach your blocks to it just like this. You’re going to make a long row of them. And then when you’re ready to do your, your sashing in between, you’re going to go ahead, again and take the sashing size is the same size as your block, with your little corner square. And the corner square is also the same size. So if your block sashing is 2 ½ which ours is, then your corner block is going to be a 2 ½ inch square. And it’s going to go right in the middle there, just like that. So let’s look at the quilt behind me so I can show you on this. So here’s our sashing strips in between. When you sew a whole row together with sashing strips then you’re going to come back in and you’re going to add this little sashing row right here. Where it starts and ends with a cornerstone as well. You’re going to put one all the way across the top and down the sides as well. So then you’re going to add this little 2 ½ inch border and your final border as your end. Now we’ve got one, two, three, four, five, six blocks. Six by seven. 42 blocks in all is what you’re going to get. And it just makes a beautiful quilt. This is one that’s fun to try in all different types of colors. I mean it’s just really a fun old fashioned block. So we hope you enjoyed this tutorial on the Susanna block from the MSQC.