Churn Dash Quilt Block

Hi, I’m Jenny from the MSQC. And today I’m feeling kind of happy-go-lucky. Actually that happens to be the name of this fabric right here behind me. This is a new line by Bonnie and Camile for Moda called Happy-Go-Lucky. And today we’re going to talk about making the churndash block. The churndash happens to be one of my favorite blocks. I just think it’s such a happy, easy block. And we’re going to make that today. So to make this quilt what you’re going to need is two layer cakes, one solid one and one printed one. And one white charm pack. The charm pack is for this center square in the churndash. And the rest of it all comes out of a layer cake. So let’s get right to that. So for each churndash block what you’re going to need is one colored layer cake and one white layer cake and then one charm pack square for the middle of the block. So we’re going to start with these two layer cakes. I’ve put them right sides together and we’re going to cut them into fourths. So we’re going to cut them into charm pack size so realistically you could use charm packs for this quilt. I like the ease of the layer cake. So we’re cutting this in half both directions. Then two of these will make the side bars, these side bars right here. And then the other two will make the half square triangles in the corners. So first we’re going to do our half square triangles. And we’re going to take our white squares over to the ironing board and we’re going to iron a crease diagonally from corner to corner. So that we get, we have a sew line. And that will help us make our half square triangles. You can draw the line if you want, I’m just going to iron one. We’ll put them right sides together. And then what we’re going to do is we’re going to sew a quarter of an inch on either side of this pressed line. So let’s go to the sewing machine and do that. I’m just using my presser foot as a guide. I run the edge of it right along the fold. And I, when I get to the end of that seam I just whipped it around and came down the other side. And I’m going to do the same thing with this one. There we go. And you can see I’m coming down this one the same way. And then around the other side. Now we’re going to cut these in half. And you can use your scissor to do that if you want or you can use your rotary cutter. I’m just going to cut mine with a scissor. And then we’ll press them open. Either way will work. We are women of many, many different tools. Alright now we’re just, I’m leaving the dark side on the top when I press so that when I roll it open that dark seam will be on the dark side of the fabric and it won’t show through the white which I think is important at this point. Alright so now we have our half square triangles and you’ll probably want to square those to 4 ½. Next we’re going to make our little side bars. And to do this we’re just going to sew down both sides of our charms and our charm squares and then cut them in half in the middle. So let’s go ahead and do that. We can run down the same side of both of these charms. Just chain piece them through. And then we’re just going to turn the whole thing around and go down the other side. There we are. Swing our other one up there. Now we’re going to go ahead and clip these apart. And clip off our threads. And then we’re going to cut these apart right here. Let me get that thread too. There we are. Ok so now we’re going to come in. And these are five inch squares so we’re going to come in 2 ½ and cut them right down that center like that. And we’re going to do that to both of them. And then we’re going to iron them open. This is such a cheery little block. I’ve seen these done in so many different ways from primitive fabrics to reds and whites. It’s just a cute little block. And lastly, our last little side piece. And then I’ll show you how we lay this out. It just goes together so cute. Ok so to lay this out we’re going to start with our white square in the middle. That gives us our anchor. Our first row is going to be our half square triangle pointed toward the middle on both sides. And one of these half strip pieces right here in the center. Then in the middle row, the two strip pieces mount to the white square in the middle. And the bottom row again is the two half square triangles pointing toward the center. And that makes our whole block. So what you’re going to do is you’re going to sew this top row together, this middle row together, this bottom row together and then assemble all three rows. And that will give you your churndash block. So when you get your block all put together it’s going to look like this. This is the churndash block. So let’s take a look at this quilt behind me. I used a layer cake so I have six across and seven rows down. It’s going to be about a king-size, I’m sorry a queen size quilt. And you’ll notice on these blocks right here I snowballed every corner on the block. So all of a sudden when you put the blocks together they get this little diamond pattern that runs throughout. And if you tie it in with the outer border using the same color fabric you get this cute zig zaggy border on the outside. And it just makes a darling quick project. And we hope you enjoyed this tutorial on the churndash block from the MSQC.