2 for 1 Pinwheel Stars Quilt Tutorial

with
Jenny Doan

2 for 1 Pinwheel Stars Quilt Tutorial

Quilt Size: 70" x 92"
Time: 14 minutes
Jenny Doan demonstrates how to make a simple Two for One Pinwheel Stars Quilt using 2.5 inch strips of precut fabric (jelly rolls). We used Olive's Flower Market Jelly Roll by Lella Boutique for Moda Fabrics. Learn how to dog ear or snowball corners.
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video transcript

Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC. And I’ve got a great project for you today. We’re calling this quilt 2 for 1 Pinwheel Stars because when you make one block you actually get the beginnings of a second block as well. So let’s take a look at this quilt behind me. Here we go. We’ve got this nice star right here in the middle. You can see this cute little star going on. And look over here, this leg over here on the corner is the beginning of a whole other block. And so it makes these two size star pinwheels that are just really adorable. So to make this quilt what you’re going to need is one roll of 2 ½ inch strips and that’s 40 of them. And we are using Oliver’s Flower Garden. And it’s from Lella for Moda fabrics. And I mean it’s just darling. You can see the fabric behind me. You’re also going to need about 3 ½ yards of background fabric. And that’s going to take care of all of this and your first border. So this is a six inch border and you’re going to need about a yard and a half for that. And it’s going to give you a quilt that is 70 by 92 so it’s a good sized quilt.

So to make this quilt what you’re going to do is you’re going to take your 2 ½ inch strip and we’re going to lay ours right out here. Just like this. Make sure this is all out of the way. And we’re going to cut four four inch pieces and four six inch pieces. So I’m going to take my ruler, now because it’s folded in half I’m going to get two every time I make a cut. So here’s my four. Four inches. And one more set of four inches. And then we’re also going to need four six inches pieces. So we’re going to make sure our, make sure your, your strip stays nice and straight. So there’s two and then we need two more. And this is all you’re left with right here, that little bit. So you’re going to have four fours and four sixes.

Alright so now from your background fabric you’re going to need to cut a strip of, four inch strip and a 2 ½ inch strip. So I’m going to come right along here and I’m going to cut a four inch strip right here. And a 2 ½ inch strip here. And then from your four inch strip you’re going to cut four inch blocks. Now for every single block you need four of these. So you’ll see, see right here. I almost did this without showing you. This is folded in half and in half again. So I am actually cutting four strips every time I make a cut. And so you want to make sure that your selvedge is right here. You’re going to trim those off. And you want to make sure that even though they lay down inside that you’re getting all of those. Because you don’t want those in your block. So we’re cutting those and then we’re going to come over here and cut four inches and we’re going to get four at a time. One, two, three, four. And four is what you need for each block. So out of each strip I can get two, enough fabric, enough squares cut for 2 ½ because I’m left here with this little fold. And I can open that up and get another four inch piece out of that. So 2 ½ blocks out of each strip.

Alright so now we’re going to need, we’re going to dogear the corners of our strips. So we’re going to need some little 2 ½ inch strips. And I’m going to do the same thing. I’m going to grab my little ruler over here. I’m going to cut off my selvedge. See this selvedge right here. He’s hiding inside there. So he’s in there a little bit deeper. And we just need to make sure that we trim all that off because we don’t want, we don’t want him in our block. So we’re cutting. We need eight of these. And you’ll actually get 16 blocks out of each 2 ½ inch strip. We just need eight to show you this block so I’m going to stop cutting right there. That was hard for me. I sure wanted to finish cutting that strip.



Alright so now what we’re going to do is we’re going to take our four little strips, and I’m going to lay them out here just like this. And each one of these strips we’re going to dogear or snowball the corners. And that means that we’re going to take our little 2 ½ inch squares. And you’re going to draw the line or press the line. I’m going to press the line on these. And honestly once you sew a few of these you’re going to get pretty good at this so you’re not even going to have to press because it just gets really easy. Ok so what we’re going to do is we’re going to take all of our squares and we’re going to set them on top of our strip just like this. And we’re going to sew right on that line, trim this off and iron this back. And that’s what I mean by dogearing or snowballing all the strips. Now here’s what you have to remember with this block. All your long blocks have to go the same direction, alright? So make sure you watch that. All your short blocks are going to go exactly the opposite direction. It doesn’t matter which direction they go. It matters that they’re opposite. Alright? So make sure you do that. Now I have a block over here that is started. So I can show you how to do this.

So I have, this is a pink block I started. And here is a long one and a short one. And we are going to go ahead, I’m going to just finger press these. You can press them on the machine, I mean with the iron or with or draw your line. I’m just finger pressing these and make sure they’re opposite. Now because I’ve already started this block I want to look and see which way my corners are dogeared to make sure they’re going opposite directions. So I don’t have to rip it out. So that one is going this way. And this one is going this way, right? Pick it up and look. Nope, this way. Alright. So now we’re going to come over to the sewing machine and sew them. And I’m going to sew right on that press line. Make sure my square is on there really nice. And sew down the side. Alright. There’s our one and then here comes the next. And you’re going to do this to all four of your shorts and all four of your longs. Alright now we’re going to trim these off right here. And I’m just laying my ruler, you can see right here. If you can see that stitch line. I’m just laying my ruler on a quarter of an inch away from the stitch line. Trimming over. And you’re always trimming away from the long part of your fabric. If you cut off the other side you’ve got to make a new strip. Alright now we’re just going to press these open. And there we go.

So these two are done. Now to make this block what we’re going to do is we’re going to take one of our four inch blocks right here. And it has a little crease so I’m just going to quickly iron that out so it lays nice and flat. And we are going to iron this on or sew this on to the block. So let me get rid of these And what we’re going to do here is we are going to put this so that it, the, the most fabric lines up with the background. We’re going to put it on here. And we’re going to stitch that a quarter of an inch right down. Alrighty. Line these up and make sure they stay nice and lined up. And then we’ll press that back. Alrighty.

So now the tall block here, this long block we’re going to put on here so that is lays against it. Also most of your fabric is going to go right to your background as well. We’re going to lay that right over and sew that down. This is one of those where if your, if your seams are a little bit off, you can catch that seam in another seam. So don’t die if it doesn’t match up exactly. Just go ahead and sew your seam and the little part that’s off will, will, will just disappear in there. Alright so I’m going to press this now.

Alright so now we have this block right here and I have four more that I’ve made. And we’re going to put them together. Now there’s two ways actually that you can put this together. This is the way we did. I wanted my big star in the center to be one color. My pinwheel star. I love how it pinwheels. I love how it looks like a star. To me they kind of look like those little ninja stars and they’re just kind of cute. So I wanted my big star in the center. And that’s how we sewed our block together with this way and this way. You know just to make like a big four patch makes your block. You can also put it together, if you want your little stars to be the ones that match. Look at that. Now your little stars match. Now the reason I chose the big ones, and let’s look at this quilt is because I wanted these big ones to pop. These little ones out here, they make that secondary star. But that’s up to you. That’s entirely up to you. So let’s put this back so that now we have our big star in the middle. And we’re going to sew this together. We’re just going to lay it right here just like we would a four patch. These two sides together here, here and here. And we’ll take them over to the sewing machine. I’m going to get rid of this. And we’ll sew a quarter of an inch down the side. This makes a really quick block really fast. This actually, for me, it changes the way I think about these 2 ½ inch strips because you know we always think of doing these stripping things. Well this takes a strip and turns it into a block which I love. Alright. Once you get your two sewn together we’re going to go ahead and sew our next two together like this. Just like a four patch. We’re going to make sure our seam nests in the center. We want one seam going one direction and one seam going the other. And because I didn’t press them I probably should have. But I didn’t. I’m just going to go ahead along here. And I’m going to sew. And when I get to the middle I’m just going to make sure one of my seams is going that way and one of my seams is going this way so they line up in the center. Sometimes you know you just get like a horse to water, you’ve got to finish that block and see what’s going to happen. So now we’re going to open this up. It looks pretty good. And I’m going to press it. Now I like to press from the top and make sure my block is nice and flat. And then I can flip it over and if there are seams that I want to go a certain direction I can make them go that way then. Alrighty. So that looks pretty good.

Now let’s look what happens when we lay this out. So I’ve got some blocks made here just like this. And I’ve got one little row that’s even sewn together. So here’s, here’s our row that’s sewn together. And really you just sew them together like this. What you’re going to do is you’re going to sew them together and just by doing that these secondary blocks out here form. Now there’s something I want to point out. You just must, must see this. As we put these together like this, ok? Here they go. So see right here. Really look carefully at this. These two blocks, these two stars do not line up. You do not have to match them. So just so you know. So when you start putting these together do not try to match these and get so frustrated because they don’t match up. They have that little notch. It’s just like this one over here is a bigger notch. But this one is close enough that it almost makes you feel like you’ve got to go back and put a pin in there. Well it’s not going to happen. It’s not going to work. So the way they come together, they just come together as this little pinwheel star up here.

So let’s look at our quilt. So we’ve got one, two, three, four, five across here and seven down. So 35 blocks. There are 40 strips in a roll which leaves us with a few for maybe a table runner or something. So this is the size you get, five by seven. So it makes a good size quilt. I hope you enjoyed this. I loved making it. I love it when we can take a block and get a little twist especially when something secondary appears. So we hope you enjoyed this tutorial on the 2 for 1 Pinwheel Stars quilt from the MSQC.

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