Transcript:
Hi, it’s Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. I’ve got a really fun Charm Pack tutorial for you today and it’s called The Scrappy Four Patch. It’s all about how to make a four patch, the regular four patch block but how to make it quick and scrappy without ever cutting any little pieces.
So, what you’re going to do is, you’re going to take your Charm Pack right here and we’re using Lilac Hill, and we’re going to take two pieces out of it and they’re going to be different pieces, pieces with a contrasting color. You’re going to put them right sides together like this and your going to sew down either side.
I have a stack of them sewn together here and you can see they’re, these are the backs of course, but they’re different on each side and they just have the seam 1/4″ down the edge of the Charm Pack.
One of the things that people always ask me is do you measure from the valley or the peak. Charm Packs, most of the precuts are set up to measure from the peak but if you measure from the valley, where ever you go just make sure you’re consistent so that your blocks end up the same size. So, we’ve sewn down these two sides, you can chain piece these through your machine and all of these have already been sewn. So you can chain piece them through so it’s really fast. Then you’re going to clip them apart, then you’re going to take each one like this.
OK, so now we’re going to take our ruler and we’re going to be cutting this right in half. So, I’m laying my ruler right over the edge and I’m going to cut this. Line your 2 1/2″ line up with the edge and we’re going to cut this in half. So, then you’re going to have a whole stack of these that are cut in half like this. And they’re different on each side, and so, what we’re going to do now is we’re going to iron all these open, and of course you want to set that seam and press it open and on this one generally you iron to the dark side but we’re just going to press these open because they’re going to all be going different directions.
So, once you get your whole stack of these things pressed open, then what you’re going to do is you’re going to sew them together like this. See how we have, you’ll take two different ones and we’ll put them together and I like to keep a light and dark so I would put them together this way so I didn’t have my two reds matching up. And you’re just going to sew them together.
Sew a long strip of them together. And then what you’re going to do is you’re going to cut your first little 5 1/2″ piece off. So, what I do is I lay it like this. Let me start at this end, I lay it like this. I fold one over and again I use my ruler and I come in 2 1/2″ and we’re going to cut this like this, and it will give you an extra piece and it will give you a charm pack that is completely scrappy.
So, let me show you that again. So, now we have that little piece cut off we’re just going to lay this over and we’re going to cut right along that edge. Oops, didn’t get it through the seam there! There we go and again another charm pack that’s completely scrappy. Lay it over and cut. So, let’s go through this quickly one more time. First you sew the sides of your charm pack. Then you cut all of them in half so you have little half stacks like this. Then you’re going to open these up like this and you’re going to put them together long sides together like this. Make sure they’re different, that the sides are going to stand out from each other.
So, you’re going to sew these together with there lines like this were they’re long ways, and then you’re going to take them and you’ll have your long ways pieces together and you’re just going to start cutting them in half again. And you end up with these scrappy four patches, and these make great, I have a little table runner here that I used a big piece of fabric, I love this Lilac Hill. So, I wanted a piece of the Lilac Hill in the center. You know I didn’t want to cut up this lilac stuff and then I’m going to be able to use all these little four patches around the outside edge as a darling border.
Scrappy, so the four patch makes a fabulous border but look at this little quilt. I used, this is all just scrappy four patches in the center. This is one charm pack and it just make the most perfect the sweetest little baby quilt you can ever imagine, and it’s just darling. This is the Sunkissed line from Sweetwater and it’s just as sweet as can be. So, you can do it as a table runner, you could do it as a border, you could just do so many things with this scrappy four patch.
Anyway we hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.
