Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Pinwheel quilt tutorial

 

My favorite crafty thing to do has got to be quilting. I absolutely love everything about quilting. My mom taught my sister and I when we were young how to quilt. SO i have been doing for probably close to 15 years. I am by no means a professional and I have sold some but use them mainly to cuddle up with on the couch.

My mom is in town this weekend, waiting on the arrival of my second child. While we have tons of time we decided why not make tons of quilt tops. My mom brought me some amazing fabric, and i decided to show you guys a new technique she showed me. This technique was not made by her but she was taught by somebody else. It is an easy technique and I thought I would share it with all of you.

The technique is how to make a pinwheel block the “easy” way. Here's what it looks like when it is done.

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This can be achieved by cutting four identical triangles with two different colored fabric but my way is easier.

So the supplies you will need to make just the TOP of the quilt, you will need more or less depending on your size blocks.

I choose a layer cake, which for those of you who don't know what that is, it is a collection of a specific pattern. It usually contains 42 different fabric types that are all coordinating. A lot of different fabric companies make them. They are 10 inches by 10 inches so fairly big. Mine is from a company called moda, and the collection I got is called “Mirabelle”*. I think mine came with 40 different colors and patterns and two that had multiples. I liked this one because of the nice spring colors. You can get layered cakes at almost any store that has fabric I think I've even seen them at places like wal-mart. Just make sure you see how many actual squares you are buying you may need two.

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So you have your 42 10”x10” blocks, now you need coordinating fabric. I choose a creamy white to offset and match all the different colors and patterns. If you were going to choose just two different fabrics that were coordinating that would work to. With 42 blocks you can have a 6 block by 7 block quilt, which is a good lap sized quilt.

This tutorial can be done with any size block as long as they are squares.

So I choose the creamy white muslin. I cut 42 10 inch blocks.

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This is the part were the tutorial actually starts, how do we make this pinwheel block?

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Like the picture above, you are going to place the colored fabric and the white fabric right sides together. Now with a 1/4 inch seam allowance you are going to sew around the entire block, like i showed with the blue line. Yes you cannot turn it right side out, that's ok it’s suppose to be like that.

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Now that you have sewn your block closed the fun part. You are going to cut corner to corner to make two triangles. It’s ok if it is not perfect, my sure wasn’t.

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Now with each half triangle you are going to cut them in half again. I lined my ruler at the bottom so it was straight and with the corner.

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When it is all cut you should have four identical triangles. the outside edges should be sewn. when you open them up they should look like this.

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Are you with me so far?

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You are going to turn them to make them look like a pinwheel. A helpful hint they meet in the middle, and the colored fabric and white fabric touch. No two colored fabric should be touching.

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Sew the top two pieces together and the two bottom pieces together.

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Then sew those two together, make sure you are lining up the seams as best you can throughout the whole process. This is your finished block. For mine I ironed after each step so they are crisp. I ironed the towards the colored fabric so you don’t see any funny colors on the white when it is all said and done. depending on your fabric you may have to iron one way or the other.

I haven't finished all my blocks but will show you a picture of other pinwheel quilts. I love the look of them, and with this technique it is so simple and fast.

Kendra's Quilt

Good luck on your own pinwheel quilt, I would love to see pictures if you decide to make one. This can be made smaller for a baby quilt, just by using smaller squares.

 

 

*this is not an endorsement for any Moda products, I just really love their fabric and they make amazing collections.

 

1 comment:

  1. What a neat way to make these! I have done pinwheels but this looks WAY faster!

    ReplyDelete