Learning to quilt the easy way is a four-part teaching series that will lead you in a clear
concise way through all the steps of quilt making, from the very basics to more complicated
designs and techniques.
Sharon Hultgren, an internationally known quilting teacher, designer, and author, presents
her unique method and the easy tools which simplify quilt making while maintaining the
accuracy needed to produce beautiful, high-quality quilts.
In this third tape of the series, Exploring New Shapes, Sharon teaches how to measure
and cut trapezoids and 45-degree diamonds.
You will also learn the secrets for setting these shapes together.
The quilt designs featured in this lesson are attic windows, reflections, eight-pointed
star, and double diamond star.
Now Sharon will give you a preview of all the quilts you can look forward to making
in this series.
Hello, I'd like to welcome you to the new quilting series entitled, Learning to Quilt
the Easy Way.
I'm Sharon Hultgren and I will be your teacher as we begin at the very beginning of quilting.
The first project in this series will be the quilt that you see in front of me.
I've called it four by four.
When we do this quilt, we will be using the rotary cutter and mat and the thick acrylic
ruler so that our squares can be cut perfectly straight and then we'll cross-cut them into
smaller pieces that you see adjoining the larger white piece.
This will be a wonderful first project for you and I know you'll feel good about it when
you've finished it.
The second quilt in our series will be the shoe fly.
The shoe fly has always been one of my favorite squares because we can do so many things with
it in color.
Here you see it with sashing strips between it.
In this quilt, we will be using the easy angles for the triangles and the squares and then
set between sashing strips and adding borders and even learning how to miter the corners.
This will be a fun second project in our series.
As we go on and do something a little larger, we're going to do a quilt that I've called
fox and geese.
Doesn't it remind you of the game we used to play when we were children in the snow
running between the corners, one being the fox and the other being part of a geese?
And here we see the large secondary block joining the block and in the large block we're
able to do our quilting.
We introduced the use of the companion angle in this quilt and you'll find that you're
able to cut those triangles on the straight of grain.
What do you like to see when you look out your attic windows?
In the next quilt that we're going to do, we're going to make attic windows and you
can place animals in your window as we see here or I'll show you how to put pieced blocks
into the windows or even a picture of your grandmother.
This is a fun quilt to make and it can be for anyone, any age, any occasion.
Reflections is a favorite quilt of mine.
It is also made with the large easy angle.
As I look at this, I see the blue spruce just standing in a golden sunset and believe it
or not, we cut this with the rotary cutter and the large easy angle all from one strip
of each color.
You'll be surprised how fast this comes together.
The eight-pointed star is always a quilt that some people fear making because of the sharp
points and the way we like them to come together in the very center.
We will use the easy eight in this quilt along with the easy angle and the companion angle.
What makes this quilt special too is the fact that we've used the sashing strips in the
same color as the background from the star, which creates this wonderful floating effect
of the stars and creates lovely spaces for you to do your quilting in.
This one I think you'll have a lot of fun with.
The easy eight also allows us to cut pieces into two parts and then sew them together
and have them be the size of the largest diamond.
What you see in this quilt that we call double diamonds, you see the wonderful effect of
the double star.
Now if you can do an eight-pointed star, a six-pointed star is going to be just a snap.
It won't be any trouble at all.
I know you'll love the colors that can come out with the six-pointed star.
Can we fill around the edges with a star or diamond that's the very same shape?
This quilt doesn't take as much time as you might think.
Using the same easy six tool, we'll be able to create this tumbling block quilt.
With three shades of fabric, dark, medium, and light, this quilt goes together very quickly.
It can be made from scraps or new cloth, depending on how you want to make it.
And then everyone's favorite, grandmother's flower garden.
Many people have these in their drawers, not finished, and some are well worn.
You'll be happy for the opportunity to create your own grandmother's flower garden using
the easy hexagon tool.
We're so happy that we have new fabrics that look like old fabrics, so we really can make
it look like grandmother's flower garden.
And then the final quilt in our project series will be inner city.
You're going to be surprised how much fun this is to make.
I promise you the city will never look the same again.
Well, these are the projects that we have planned for you in this new exciting series
entitled, Learning to Quilt the Easy Way.
I hope you'll be able to join us.
Hi, we're back again, and now we're going to work with one of everybody's favorite designs,
and that's attic windows.
I'd like to show you a piece that I made some time ago using dyed fabrics.
It may look to you as you look at it that you think it's our lighting that creates the
shaded effect, but really it's dyed fabric where the lighter fabrics are the top and
then go into the dark fabrics on the bottom.
Part of the fun of making attic windows is deciding what you're going to put into the
window.
In this particular quilt, I took a floral background to create the window, and I hope
that you think that you're looking right through a garden window where you're looking through
the window out into a lovely garden.
Really the garden pieces are just small little two-inch squares.
I'd like to show you some more attic window quilts.
Sometimes we can take attic windows and set a pieced block into it.
Here we have an attic window that has the friendship star sitting in the corner.
This quilt is from my new book, Traditional Quilts Number Two, and I've called this quilt
from my attic window.
If you'd like to see the stars come out at some night, then you might like to put stars
into the window of your attic window quilt.
This is a pieced block inside the frame of an attic window.
Another one is where we have used the attic window block to frame family pictures.
Some of you have done quilts where you've used family pictures and stuff, and you can
take your attic window and go around the portraits of members of your family, and that's a lot
of fun as well.
You can also tell a story with your attic window frames.
This is a piece that I made for our son while he was overseas.
And I wanted to remind him of where he had come from, and so we used pine trees and cabins
and framed the attic window around each one.
I also set sashing strips between the blocks so that it really gives you the effect of
looking through the window.
So there you can see you can tell a story with the attic window.
And then one of our favorites is when we can put animals into the windows, and the children
love this quilt.
This just looks like it should hang in a little boy's room, full of tigers and elephants
and zebras.
And here we cut, again the windows are simply framing the fabric print.
And this is the one we're going to make together today.
I'll set this over here and we can begin.
Now the first thing we want to do is cut the strips for the attic window frame.
We're going to use two fabrics that look nice together, the deeper print and then the
lighter solid.
As you plan your quilt, you want to be sure that these contrast enough to give that depth
perception that you get when you're looking for an attic window.
I'm cutting the strips two and one half inches wide.
So we'll open up our fabric, put the folded edge on our right side, line it up with the
grid on the board, and we have it nice and straight across the bottom so we don't have
to straighten that again.
Then I'm going to take the quick line, set it onto the fabric, leave one half inch of
the quick line off of the fabric, so now I have two and a half inches.
Hold down on the tool and cut the strip.
Just like that.
Now we put that together with the other piece of fabric.
Something very important that you want to be careful of is that whatever fabric you
start with when you put these two pieces together, that you continue with that strip always being
on the top.
And the reason is if you'll notice when I lay this down, when I create my attic window
shape here and turn it that way, I have the darker gold here and the lighter gold on the
bottom.
Now let's turn it the other way around, and I think I can show you by just using the other
end of the strips.
Now when my darker piece is on the top, when I open it, I have a different piece.
They exchange places.
And so as you're making this, be very careful that your strips are always in the same light
being on top of the dark.
With that, we will start to cut our attic window shapes.
Now this particular quilt happens to be an eight inch block, two inches for frame, and
then the block that I set in is six inches.
And so I will cut my first pieces from the two and a half inch strip using the large
easy angle.
The first thing we'll do is cut off the selvage edge, just like that.
Now I'm going to take the easy angle, and I'm going to spot eight and one half inches
on the easy angle, and it's right there.
We know that the block is eight inch finished, so we need eight and a half inches for the
length of our strip.
So I'll set that on the fabric, I slide this down to where eight and a half inches is right
there in the corner.
Hold down on the tool and cut the diagonal edge, just like that, and it's ready to sew.
For the next cutting, I turn the tool over, again, just like a page in the book, and this
time the eight and a half is right here.
Watch, I'm going to turn that again, and you'll see that we're using the same numbers each
time.
This time the eight and a half is right there, and as I turn the tool, the eight and a half
is up there now.
So I'm going to bring the tool over to our strips of fabric that are still right sides
together, slide it up so the eight and a half is on the fabric right there.
And the rest of the strip just sets right in, and you can tell, you can see the perfectly
straight lines, you have your diagonal line there, so we know it's setting right where
it should be.
Hold down on the tool and cut the straight edge, and your next piece is cut.
Then just bring it across and continue on down the strip until you've used the strip
or cut as many squares as you need.
Now once again, I'm going to flip this back, drop the bottom edge of the tool onto the
bottom edge of the strip, slide it over so eight and a half is in the corner, hold down
on the tool, and cut the diagonal.
Then turn the page in the book and drop the tool down so that the eight and a half is
on the fabric right up there, sets on just perfectly, and cut that.
Now they're ready to sew, and if I open these up, you will notice that I have my attic window
shapes ready to be pieced, just like that.
So now we'll go to the sewing machine and we can sew those.
Okay, now we're ready to cut the squares for the windows.
As I mentioned before, we can use a large floral, and they really look wonderful.
So don't hesitate to look at the larger florals and realize that you're just going to see
a garden off into the distance.
Also, if you enjoy hand quilting or machine quilting, think about using a light solid
fabric in the window and featuring your quilting in that spot, because the quilting always
stands out beautifully on light fabric.
That's another option for your window.
But today we're going to use this animal print so that we can see animals in our window.
So the first thing we want to do is open the fabric, and we'll put the folded edge on our
right hand side, and put the folded edge right along the red grid line on the mat.
Now we'll straighten the bottom edge by taking the long ruler and connecting this red line
on that side with that red line on my right hand side, and we'll make our cut across,
just like that.
Now we need to cut our window six and one half inches square, because our whole block
was eight and one half inches, and so we have two inches in the window frame, so now we
need a six and a half inch square.
My favorite way to cut a six and a half inch strip is simply to take and count on the board
and then add a half an inch.
So I would count one, two, three, four, five, six, and then put a half an inch more on using
the half inch mark on my ruler.
I'll do that again.
One, two, three, four, five, six, and then a half an inch with the ruler.
So we'll hold down on the ruler and cut across the fabric.
Now we need to cut our squares, and we'll use the large easy angle for that.
We bring, first we'll cut the salvage edge off again.
We don't want printing on our fabric, on the top of our quilt, I mean.
Now this is going to be a six and a half inch square, so once again the six and a half inch
that we see there with the black tip pointed toward our body will give us a square.
So I set the easy angle down with the six and a half inch in the corner, squared up
here, it's square across the bottom, and now I can cut my six and a half inch square.
Now if you would really like to center the animals, if you would really like to see a
whole lion's face, a whole elephant's head, you can cut this more carefully where you
center the squares.
You will waste some fabric that way, but it does feature each animal in the window.
This looks more like the animals are just walking by the window.
So let's continue to cut a couple more squares.
Six and a half inch in the corner, hold down in the tool, and cut our straight edge.
But I think we can get one more from this strip.
Six and a half inch in the corner, and cut along the straight edge.
Now the one thing that I caution you about is that because we're putting pieces of fabric
between our windows, you have to be careful, and I'm going to turn this around so that
the tiger will be looking you right in the eye.
If that tiger is looking at you, and I suddenly put windows between him, you see suddenly
our tiger has gotten very long.
And so because of that, we won't put the other part of the tiger there.
We'll put another block, and then the tiger won't appear to be so long.
So just stagger the blocks after you cut them.
Well, I'm ready to set the windows into the window walls.
Let's go.
Okay, now let's set the windows into the window frame.
The first thing we have to do is sew this diagonal corner.
The trick here is to remember not to sew at the very beginning of that edge of the strip.
We want to begin a quarter inch down.
Let me show you how to mark that if you've not done this before.
I like to take a pencil and my easy angle and mark the seam allowance on this edge of
the piece and also on this edge of the piece.
Watch as I do that.
I'll take the easy angle, bring it over to the fabric, and you notice that this time
mostly the easy angle is off of the fabric.
Only the quarter inch seam allowance that's marked on the easy angle is on the fabric.
So I'm going to hold down on the tool and mark this with a pencil.
Remember not to use a ballpoint pen.
We want to just use a pencil.
And now I'm going to turn the corner and mark this edge as well.
Again, the quarter inch seam allowance is on the fabric.
Also if you're a hand piecer, you can still cut the fabric out with the easy tools and
then mark your edges and I could hand piece on these marks as well.
Now the place where these marks intersect, that is called the seam intersection.
And it's right there that I want to begin stitching.
So as I bring this window frame over to the sewing machine, I'm going to gently set my
sewing machine needle right into that spot.
Now some people might like to reinforce that by going back and forth.
But I believe you have to know your sewing machine very well because some machines take
a back step before they come forward and we want it to be just from that exact point coming
forward.
So set the presser foot down and begin to stitch.
We'll come right down.
Now as you come into this fine point, be sure that you stay on the quarter inch seam allowance.
Don't come over and start to divide that point in half where your piece won't stay square.
Just like that.
Okay.
We'll cut the threads.
And I like to cut this thread that we started off with back to about an inch and a half to
two inches and we'll just leave it be there.
Now all we have to do is open the window.
And we turn it this way because our window picture is going to set in right like that.
We take the picture and turn it over.
Match the top edge of the picture to the window frame.
Just like that.
And I'm going to begin stitching off the edge and come down.
Quarter inch seam allowance.
Stitching right down.
Carefully setting this on there.
And when I get down to a quarter inch from the bottom edge, I'm going to stop stitching.
Because I don't want to stitch into that seam allowance.
Stop.
It is better to take one too many stitches though than have to try to put a stitch back
in.
Okay.
Now I'm going to open the window and close the door.
I'll do that again.
I'm going to give it a quarter.
Here's how I've just sewn it.
I'm going to give it a quarter turn.
I'm going to open the window and close the door.
I just fold that right over.
Now after I've folded that over, if you pick this up and you see how it's kind of bunched
down there.
If you take your finger and go in there and just kind of pull all the seam allowances down,
they won't get caught when you sew this final seam.
And once again, I match the top edge and you see it just lays there just perfectly.
And I stitch.
Now the reason that I always sew from the outside toward the center is because I think
it's important that the outside edges are even.
Otherwise you'll have a tendency to want to trim it off.
And we shouldn't have to do any trimming when we're carefully and accurately sewing.
Stitch right down to where those last stitches stop and stop.
Pull it away from the machine and clip your threads.
And guess what?
Now all we have to do is press.
Press the seam allowance towards the window.
So we'll bring it over here, lay it on the ironing board, and press that just like that.
And just like that our window is complete.
Not difficult at all.
You can put many more animals into your window and make many more animal windows.
Put them together in as large as you want your quilt to be.
One thing you'll notice on the completed quilt is that there is a dark border that goes around
the entire edge of the quilt.
You want that thin outside border because it kind of stops the picture windows.
Gives a place for the eye to say, oh, there are no more attic windows to this quilt.
And then after that dark outside border, add your final borders.
I hope you've enjoyed making this project.
Hi, I'm really excited to show you this wonderful quilt that is made with hand-dyed fabrics
to look like suede.
And if you can believe it, all of these pieces are cut from a single strip using the large
easy angle.
Doesn't it just look like the blue spruce are standing against a golden sunset?
I'd like to show you how to do this now.
To create this quilt, I've used four strips of fabric and they are in four different colors.
I have a light blue, a dark blue, a deep gold, and then a lighter gold.
Now, if you wanted to change the colors to where you were working with green and a beige
background or maybe a red background and a green tree or whatever, that's fine.
Just know that in this quilt, I've used these four shades of color.
What we're going to do now is layer the fabric in a pile.
So I'm going to open up the light blue strip and open up the dark blue strip, just like
that.
And then I'm going to lay the dark gold fabric on top of the dark blue strip.
And then we're going to put the light gold fabric on top of the dark gold strip.
And we're ready to cut.
Just like that.
Now, the first cut we're going to do with a small, easy angle.
Very good.
Set it over here and clean up the salvage edge.
We always want to be sure that we start with a nice square angle.
So we take the salvage edge of the fabric off, just like that.
Now this is a two and a half inch wide strip.
So I'm back to using the easy angle the way it's always used for triangles.
So I set the easy angle onto the strip of fabric, match the bottom edge of the easy
angle, and I slide it over so that two and a half inches is right in the corner.
Roll down on the tool, and we've now made the top of our tree.
Just like that.
And a little bit of the background.
Now I'm going to switch to the large, easy angle.
Just because now we can go up and make the full extension of the tree.
And I'm going to turn it over so that the black tip is pointing toward my body.
And I'm going to read the numbers again that are on the strip right along this edge of
the tool.
Putting the tool onto the strip of fabric, I'm going to find three and a half inches
this time.
Our first piece was two and a half inches, now we're cutting three and a half inches.
Three and a half is right there.
Cut the three and a half, set it aside, turn the tool over, like the page in the book,
back to where we started, put the tool over onto the fabric, and if you look right here,
you will see four and a half.
Now the number is backwards, but if I look up here, I can also see four and a half.
To double check that what I'm looking at is four and a half.
Holding down on the tool, I cut the diagonal edge.
Then I'm going to flip the tool over and cut on five and a half.
Pull the tool so that the black tip is pointing toward my body.
Five and a half appears right there, and it goes straight across, and the whole piece
just sets right into those marks.
Hold down on the tool and cut the straight edge.
Can you hear our tree growing?
It's getting bigger.
Straighten out our strips, just like that, and we're ready to go.
Now the last piece that we cut was at five and a half inches, so this time we're going
for six and a half.
We'll put six and a half right here, hold down on the tool, cut the diagonal, flip the
tool over, seven and a half, we put seven and a half right in there, hold down on the
tool, there's seven and a half, and one more piece.
We'll flip it back over now and cut our eight and a half inch piece.
Again, the whole number has to be on the fabric.
Put it down and cut the diagonal edge.
This will save for another time.
Now are you ready to put the tree together?
What?
We'll turn them over so that we can start at the top of the tree.
The light blue we're going to put on our left, and the dark blue we're going to put on our
right, and these are the background pieces for the bottom branches of the tree.
The light is on my left and the dark is on my right.
So then I'm going to go back up to the top of my tree, the light and the dark, and now
we'll come and put the dark on the right and the light on the left.
You can figure out what's going to happen, can't you?
These branches to the tree are going to go here and here, and the background is in this
place.
Slide this down just a little bit, up a little bit.
Now we have the middle piece, and the middle piece, the fourth piece, works with itself.
And so it's at this piece that we will join the two background fabrics to the blue piece.
This one will go right there, and the light side will come there.
Then our next blue piece will come down here, and the dark goes on this side, and the light
or the dark piece on top of the background and the light background up there.
Two more to go, light, dark, and the dark is on the top, and the light is on this side,
and the final branch on the bottom, the light and the dark.
And you see how they just fit together, and we'll finish the top of the tree with a golden
sunset right behind it.
There.
Now when we sew those pieces together, we will pick them up, and this lays right over
the top, and we simply match, set this right into the corner, and use our quarter inch
seam allowance coming right down there.
Now the other pieces, as you match those together, you have to be very careful that you allow
for a perfect quarter inch seam, beginning to stitch right here and going to there.
And you can check your quarter inch seam allowance by taking your easy angle, setting it on the
fabric on the edge, and you will want the marking on the easy angle that shows the seam
allowance to cross right over in this valley and end up right down on that point.
And you know you have a perfect quarter inch seam.
If you should make a mistake and, for instance, match it like this, when it's sewn together
and you turn it back, you will have a stair step that won't be perfect.
And so you want to watch carefully for your quarter inch seam.
When you press those pieces after they're sewn, you will press them so that the seam
allowance goes toward the blue piece.
So if I were pressing this now, I'll press it this way, seam allowance, because we want
the tree to come away from the background.
And so I'll press all of these pieces with the seam allowance towards the blue piece.
Just as we have it here.
After all of those pieces are pressed, then we begin to join the rows together.
The first row to the second, to the third, and all the way up to the seventh row.
The tree half will then look like this.
Now here I think it's important to press these seam allowances going up.
And I think it's because if we pressed them down, the tree would catch the rain.
And so we want to press the seam allowances up, because we know that tree branches kind
of fall one on top of the other.
And after you have sewn the two halves of the quilt together, then you want to bring
the two halves together with a center seam right down the middle.
It just goes right down the center.
That is one seam that I think it's okay to press open.
Because then one side of the tree isn't higher than the other side of the tree.
And after it's pressed open, you'll have a wonderful blue spruce standing in the sunset.
I believe that this would be a wonderful quilt in a den or a study across the sofa, or on
a man's bed, or off to college, maybe hanging in your cabin way up north to remind you of
the blue spruce in a golden sunset.
I hope you've enjoyed doing this project as much as I have.
As we continue on our Learning to Quilt the Easy Way series, we're going to begin with
the eight-pointed star.
This is often feared by quilters because of all the different shapes.
I'm going to show you an easy way, and you're going to love making eight-pointed stars.
The quilt that we're working with is the one that I have on the table.
And you'll notice that it appears that the stars are floating on the background, when
in fact they're individual squares that are joined by sashing strips that are the same
color.
And I love the way it just looks like they're floating.
And then of course the quilting design, when it goes, it covers over the squares and the
sashing, really makes it look like one piece.
I'm excited to show you how we do this.
Let's get started.
The secret to doing the eight-pointed star is the easy eight.
I've designed the easy eight so that you will always know what the finished edge of your
diamond is.
We're able to do that because, first of all, we cut the strips on the marked lines.
And you'll notice that there are numbers in parentheses, two, two and a half, three, three
and a half, four.
What those lines are really telling you is that if you will cut a strip as wide as from
the top of the tulle to that line, after that strip is cut, you will then have a diamond
that is that size.
So cutting on the two-inch line over here will result in a two-inch diamond as you see
it here.
Let me show you how it works.
Okay, we're going to take the easy eight over to the fabric that's going to be the stars.
And the first thing we want to do is lay the tulle on the fabric so that the number two
in parentheses shows.
I bring that to the fabric, laying it on, we line up the line of the two-inch.
And I know this is difficult for you to see, but the two-inch, except I'm going to move
it up to three-inch because that's what we're going to do, the three-inch finished edge
is right there.
Hold down on the tulle and make the cut right across that way.
Now we have a strip wide enough to give us our diamond points.
Going to open the strip, just one open.
We don't have to have it quarter-folded, but we don't have it all the way out either.
So we lay the fabric on the table.
And then, at this point, we're going to rotate the tulle around so that we're working with
the diamonds now.
We've cut our strip, we're working with the diamonds.
The first thing we do is set it on the fabric and pull it way over to the edge because we
need to start our angle.
So our first cut is wasted fabric in this little area here.
But we hold down on the fabric, on the tulle, and cut that diagonal edge.
Set this aside for your miniatures, friends.
Okay, and then pull the tulle over, and you'll notice that the three-inch is right there
on the tulle, and now the diamond shape just fits right into the lines marked on the tulle.
We hold down on the tulle and cut the diamond.
And these are double, so there are two.
And we slide it along, and we don't have to turn the tulle at all.
We just continue sliding down the strip.
There's four.
Set the tulle on again, onto the three-inch space, follow all the lines, hold down on
the tulle, six, and we'll make one more cut in that same three-inch mark and cut again.
Now if you happen to be left-handed, you're also able to have a strip going off to your
left and just turn the tulle over.
And you're going to look at the numbers on the other side, and you will cut with your
left hand cutting this way and continue to slide the tulle in that direction, and you
won't have any trouble at all.
Now after we have cut our diamonds, we need the corners and we need the triangles.
For that we're going to use a regular ruler.
We'll take the regular ruler and cut a three and one half-inch strip, and that's very important.
When I designed the EZ-8, I included the seam allowance in the measurements, but when
we go to cut the strips, we have to add the half an inch for the straight part.
And so we will cut a strip that's three and one half inches wide.
We'll take our fabric and open it, and you can put the fold on the right side, and we
will cut a three and one half-inch strip.
Set it out on the bottom.
We'll take the super quick line and do this.
First we'll straighten the bottom edge of the fabric by just going right across from
red line to red line, holding down on the tulle, and line it up with the red lines,
and we'll continue our cut all the way across.
And now we're ready to look for three and one half inches, one, two, three, and then
a half an inch.
And remember that the fabric that you're cutting should be underneath the ruler so
the piece stays very nice.
Hold down on the tulle and come all the way across.
Now from that, we're going to cut both squares and triangles.
We will use the EZ-angle for that.
The first thing we want to do is clean up the salvage edge, so we kind of like to line
it up on our grid, and we'll just take the long edge of the EZ-angle and follow the red
lines and just cut it nice and straight.
Then we know it's squared right there.
We need four triangles for the star, so we're going to set the EZ-angle onto the white fabric,
and there you see three and a half inches right on the tulle.
We're going to slide it over to the left so three and a half is in the corner.
Hold down on the tulle and cut the diagonal.
There's two of them.
Now I'm going to flip the tulle over just like you're turning the page in a book and
drop the little black flag right below the edge of the fabric, and three and a half shows
right there again on the fabric.
Hold down on the tulle and make your straight cut.
Now we have our four triangles, so now we need to cut the four squares.
We simply, while the tulle is setting with the black tip toward your body, then just
bring the EZ-angle over, and you'll notice that right in the corner again I have three
and one half inches.
So I can hold down on the tulle, cut the square, lift the tulle, and just slide it over, put
three and a half on the fabric completely, and then we can cut the straight edge.
And just like that, we have our squares and triangles.
Now I mentioned at another time that Darlene Zimmerman has designed a companion angle for
us, and it also works with the eight-pointed star, and the way it works is that we're going
to take this strip and we're going to cut it with the EZ-8, and I'm going to cut it
on the three-inch marking.
So if I bring the tulle onto the strip of fabric, and now you can really see the lines
on the white, and you notice where it says three inches right there.
That's reminding me that the diamond has a three-inch finished edge.
I'll hold down on the tulle and cut the strip, and then using the companion angle, I can
set the companion angle onto the strip just like this.
Hold down on the tulle and cut, and what this allows is that now the triangle cutting with
Darlene's tulle gives us a straight edge out here on the long edge of the triangle, where
with the EZ-8, the long edge is on the bias.
So if you want your triangles to have a firmer outside, you'll want to use the companion
angle in that place on the eight-pointed star.
Now one other thing that I mentioned was the sashing strips.
So another cut that we will make, I have made it and I'll show you where it goes, and that's
the sashing strip that falls between the stars, and it's two inches wide.
So we'll cut the two-inch strip to go between the stars.
One other thing if you notice on the quilt that I'm showing you, that we have some stars
that have a black point, and that just is kind of fun to mix the two.
The process is no different than I'm going to show you at the sewing machine.
It's just that we introduce a second color, and it just adds some interest and some excitement
to the quilt.
Well, I'm ready to sew.
Are you ready to come with me?
All right, now we're ready to put the star together.
The first thing I'd like to show you is a little trick that one of my students showed
me, and that is we need to always begin at the seam intersection on the edge right here.
Now in order to have that be the same each time, we learned this little trick.
If we first mark the edges so that you're sure that you know where the quarter-inch
seam is, we'll mark each side using the easy angle quarter-inch seam allowance mark.
And when I do that, I can see that right there is where my seam intersection is.
Now I will take that spot and set the sewing machine needle right into that place, just
like that, drop the presser foot down.
Now I have a perfect quarter-inch seam allowance coming toward my body, and this part that
sticks back here, watch what I can do.
I'll take a piece of masking tape and lay it right behind the star point so that all
of the points after that will be perfect because it becomes like a template.
And I just have to start each piece with the fabric following the tape line.
Isn't that wonderful?
It's fun when you're teaching.
We often learn more from our students maybe than the students learn from us.
So now I'm going to begin sewing down.
The most critical thing about sewing an eight-pointed star is that you maintain a quarter-inch seam
allowance all the way down to that point.
Because we think it's a piece of pie, and as we get to that skinny place we're supposed
to share halves.
No way.
Keep your quarter-inch seam allowance all the way down.
And so we begin stitching.
And this seam we're going to completely close, pull it back, and then go with the next piece.
Again, because something's going to be set into that, we can't begin stitching at the
edge.
We can't begin stitching a quarter-inch in, but we can come and use our template.
You see how it just sets right in there?
We know exactly where to begin stitching.
Pull it back and do the next one.
There.
Now we have finished our fourth pair.
Now we'll bring them to the sewing machine and press them.
First of all, as I clip them apart, you'll want to leave the thread that is coming from
the wide angle or where we began stitching a quarter-inch in.
Leave that thread longer.
So as you clip, always clip closest to the narrow point.
You'll notice, too, that I used a dark thread in here.
Your points will look better as they come together if you have some dark thread, because
often it's the thread that stands out and it isn't that your points don't come together
nicely.
Okay, and we go to the sewing machine, to the ironing board.
Now I'm going to turn these so that the seam is in my left hand again.
So turn that over and bring them to the ironing board.
And again, we want all the seam allowances to go towards the left and when we're looking
at the top side, we want to iron from the top side.
So watch as I pick this piece up, I bring it to the ironing board and let the iron just
roll that seam over.
You see how that went to that direction?
Okay, let's do the next one.
Pick up the point and bring it to the board and let the iron just roll that edge over.
And you always iron each pair this way and the reason is, is so that when you come to
setting the square in afterwards, you don't have a problem with the seam being in the
way.
There, all the pieces are ironed.
Now we're ready to put the pairs together.
We will put two next to the other two.
Now if you can look, you will notice here that the seam allowance on this pair is going
to my left and the seam allowance on the other pair is going to my right.
And because they're doing that, I can let them, they'll really snuggle right up here
in the point.
Now another little trick.
Before I would always stitch coming from the edge and stitch right through there, but I've
learned that if I begin my stitching right at that stitching line and come down, then
when my star is all finished, I'll show you on the back of this piece that I've done,
I'm able to flare out that center and the center is much flatter and is much nicer to
quilt.
But you have to back here, right here where I'm showing you, you must start stitching
right on that seam line and come down.
I'll show you what I mean.
We'll bring this pair to the machine and set the needle right into that stitching line
and then come down.
What that does, it leaves it open above there so that when you come to press, you can flare
it out.
And coming down, I must stop a quarter inch from that edge because again, that's a place
I'm going to set something into.
So we'll do that and then we'll do the other pair.
Right sides together, get the seam so that they just snuggle, begin stitching at the
seam line, set the needle into it, and then drop the presser foot and stop a quarter inch
from the wide angled end down here.
Come up and stop and pull it away.
Leave a little thread on this one because again, you've not backstitched there and we
don't backstitch because if we need to lift a thread out, it's much easier if you're not
backstitched.
I should mention, someone asked me one time how long your sewing stitches should be.
Someone else mentioned the same width as your seam ripper.
Hopefully, we don't have to use those.
As we open this piece, we also go to the ironing board and we continue with the seam allowance
going toward your left as you're looking at the top of the piece.
So we bring it to the ironing board, we let the iron roll that seam right over.
Grab the other one, pick it up, and let it just roll the seam right over.
See how nice and flat that lays?
And it's because we've used a perfect quarter inch seam and our pieces have been accurately
cut.
Now we're ready to put the top half together with, we can say, the other half or the bottom
half.
And once again, if you notice, all of the seams are going in this direction on this
side and they're going the opposite direction underneath.
So once again, the pieces shall just snuggle in here.
You can just feel it with your thumb.
Now I like to put a pin in just to make sure there's a lot of things happening right at
that point and we want all those seam allowances to stay exactly the way we've pressed them.
So I like to put a pin right in there.
And you notice that when we come out here, see how the pieces have perfectly matched
each other.
So we don't have to pin there.
We'll go back to our little template, set the diamond right in where it belongs, just
like that, and begin stitching.
Hang on.
And then take the pin out just as you're coming to the center there because you don't want
to sew over the pin.
All the way through and when you get down here, stop a quarter inch from the end and
pull it away.
Clip your thread and then peek and see how your point is.
Ah, just fine.
Okay, now when you're ready to press this, you will continue to flare the seams so they're
all going in the same direction and that little point just flattens down.
And that's how we've done our star.
Now we need to set the squares and triangles into the star.
I'm going to press this just a little bit so that it stays nicely as we put in our corners
and our triangles.
Now the first thing I like to do is put my squares into the corners, into the four corners.
We have four corners that have squares and four corners or four parts that have triangles.
So we'll do the squares first.
As you take the square to the place it's going to set in, you want to look at the top of
the star and you'll lay the piece on that edge.
And interestingly enough, the little red part, as you see it now, that sticks up is the same
size piece that often when we're trimming our quilting things that we end up cutting
off.
And so the other thing that we can really be looking at is where our seam intersections
are.
And the seam intersection is where a quarter inch is here and crisscrosses and I put a
pin right there and I can put a pin where the seam intersection would be on the diamond
and it'll be just perfect.
It's very important to understand seam intersections.
That's how our pieces can fit together perfectly.
And I will stop sewing when I get down to the seam, which again is at the seam intersection.
And we sew down to the center and we sew from off the edge.
We come down and we sew right to where the pin is or where that other seam is.
Then we pull it away from the sewing machine and clip the threads and leave them about
two inches long.
Then a quarter turn and we open the window and close the door or fold this piece over
the top.
And I like to then just take my finger and just pull all those seams, get them out of
the way and then line up the top.
And again you'll have the same size piece just kind of hanging over the top and we'll
begin stitching from the top and stitch towards the center.
Come right down, make sure those edges are even and stop when you get there.
Pull it back and snip your threads.
And when you open that up, get your seam allowance going the right direction, you will see how
that just sets right in there just perfectly.
Many people are afraid to set things in like that, but it's the same thing with the attic
window, it's not difficult at all.
So we would continue and put the squares in all the four corners and then we would set
the triangle in the same way.
I think it's very important to press this at this point because when you put the triangles
on you want to be sure that the seam allowance stays down because you want to sew that with
the seam allowance down.
Now for instance, this triangle as it sets in there, I will set this back, line it up
and then begin stitching right off the edge, quarter inch seam allowance, pull this thread
through.
And when you come to the seam, stop, clip your threads.
And you'll notice that I'm not backstitching when I come to these end places.
I believe that as long as we leave some threads about an inch and a half to two inches long
that that's just fine because we'll be quilting over them, where if we take the backstitch
or try to tie a knot, if it's not in just the right place when we go to set the things
in, then you have to try to lift it out and sometimes those threads break and that's weaker
than a long thread.
My little grandson loves to jump on the bed and I figure as long as I leave these threads
long enough and quilt it well, he can still jump on the bed and the points won't come
apart. He probably won't do that much longer.
And we sew again from the outside, coming toward the center and stop when you get to
seam allowance. Pull it back and clip the thread. And with that, we've sewn in a triangle
and that also just sets in there just perfectly and it's ready to press.
Okay, after you've completed the stars for this quilt, the only thing that's left to
do is join them by the sashing strip that we've cut two inches wide. And I'll show
you again on the large quilt how the sashing strip comes between the pieces to cause that
floating effect. And after you've joined the stars with the sashing strip, then continue
on the outside edge with your borders. And this piece could become a lot larger. If you
want to add more stars, you could make a whole bed filled with stars. So I challenge you
to get excited about making eight pointed stars.
On this quilt, you'll notice that the difference is that the eight pointed stars have a little
extra sparkle. And so we're going to call this quilt double diamonds because you notice
that the two smaller pieces are set against the larger diamond. We make this quilt again
with the Easy 8 and let me show you how. The first thing that we need to do is cut the
strips. And we will cut the strips using the Easy 8 again and we will follow the two inch
finished edge for the strips that create the sparkle to the diamond. And so we'll turn
it like this. We put the folded edge on my right side, line it up with the red mark on
the gridded board, then bring the Easy 8 over and I see two inches is right there. So I'll
set the tool onto the fabric, bring the two inches right along the bottom edge, and then
cut it. Just like that. Then after cutting the light blue piece, we'll also cut a dark
blue strip and then we simply sew them together with just the simple seam. And I like to press
the seam allowance towards the blue. Now this is ready to cut in the same way that we cut
the other large diamond that I'll show you in a minute. But at this point, we take the
Easy 8 and rotate it and start working with the diagonal edge. I'm going to take the tool
and slide it way off the edge because we just need to start our angle. If I come here, it's
too far. If I go here, I've wasted fabric. So I'm going to come so just the point meets
the edge of the fabric. Hold down on the tool and then cut right along that edge. Now if
you remember, this one was on the two inch finished edge, so this time I'm going to look
for the two inch finished edge of the star. Even though it's as wide as the four, I'm
coming over just to the two line and the two is right here. So holding down on the tool,
I hold down and I make this cut, slide it away, slide the tool down to the next position
where the two is seen, line for the two, and we continue down the strip this way until
we have enough pieces or eight pieces for each star. And after they're all cut, to sew
them, we just sew them together, coming together like that. Now the important thing when you're
sewing them together is that when you bring them together, you want to match this point.
You want this seam allowance to cross with that seam allowance so that when you open
up the piece, it makes a perfect point right in there. You want that to come together so
that it looks nice. Here's one that I finished earlier. And you can see that it comes together
that way. Now after that is done, then you'll go and take the darker fabric again and cut
it on the four inch line. And I know that this is difficult for you to see because the
background is dark, but watch as I cut on the four inch line. It's easier because the
four inch is the largest diamond that the EZ-8 will make. So we rotate it around, set
the bottom edge of the tool, because now the number four is at the very bottom. So we hold
down on the tool and cut straight across. And then after that, it's just the same. We
open it up, turn the tool, start at the edge, begin our cut, and then we're going to cut
and then continue across the piece making large four inch diamonds. After you've completed
all of the diamonds, then you're ready to put the star together in the same way that
we just put the other star together, the other eight pointed star, bringing the pieces together
first in pairs, then in quarters, and then put the entire star together. Press the seam
allowances the same way that we just did the other one. A couple of other special things
about this quilt. First of all, you'll notice if I hold it up again, you'll notice that
it's sitting on point. I'm holding the square edge, but the rest of the quilt is actually
on point. There is an easy way to figure out how to put something even this large on point.
What we want to do is after you have put the borders onto the center section, you'll take
a tape measure and measure from one point all the way over to the other point. And
for instance, if that measurement is 4 feet or 48 inches, you would divide the 48 inches
in half and have 18, not 18, 24 inches, and take 24 inches, add 1 inch to that, 25 inches,
cut a square 25 inches, then cut that square diagonally, and those pieces will fit in the
corner. You'll see further instructions on that in the book that accompanies the Learning
to Quilt the Easy Way video series. You'll also notice in this quilt that I've machine
quilted. This area has the stippling, and here we've put a pattern in. We have a new
product, Easy has a new product called Stitch Through that makes this just a lot of fun.
All I have to do is set the piece of paper on, pin it along, and then I can stitch right
on the lines, and I haven't had to mark my fabric at all. I'm really excited about this
because I enjoy machine quilting my quilts, and this is going to make it a lot easier.
So again, you machine quilt, of course, after you've added your borders and after you've
pinned it together or basted it in some way, and I've found even quilting this large piece
went very easily. I hope you enjoy making double diamonds.
For detailed directions, diagrams, and yardage requirements for the quilts, plus additional
projects, please consult the coordinating workbook available where these tapes are sold. Also,
look for the Easy Tools and other books by Sharon Hoffgren in fine fabric stores and
quilt shops. Please join Sharon on the next tape, 60 Degree Shapes with No Math, to learn
how to make the Six-Pointed Star, Tumbling Blocks, Grandmother's Flower Garden, and Inner
City. Happy quilting the easy way.