Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC. And today I have a super simple, quick, fun, easy project for you. Take a look at this quilt behind me. I love anything pixelated. I just really love the pixelated look. I love how you can make things out of using straight squares. And this is our pixelated heart. So to make this quilt, you’re going to need two packs of five inch squares and we have used Artisan Batiks Inspired by Nature for Studio K by Robert Kaufman. Then you’re going to need four packs. So the math on this is double. Two of color, four of white. And they’re five inch squares. If you need to buy yardage you can buy three yards of it and cut them into five inch squares. So same size squares. Our binding out here is a half yard. No border on this quilt. And our backing is 4 ½ yards. And it’s this pretty print from the line. And it just makes a great little quilt. The quilt ends up being 75 by 75. Now I have made several of these pixelated quilts. And basically I looked at the picture. I counted the squares. I sewed together, I knew, I needed, you know, two rows or three rows of whites. And then I needed four squares and two coloreds. And, you know, I just counted it out and did this. Then we discovered that there’s actually a pattern by Robert Kaufman. So this might make it easier for you.


So now you’re ready to make this quilt. And what you want to do is you want to look at your pattern and you want to just sew blocks together. So you’re going to look at block one here. There are five blocks in each row. So you’re going to sew one, two, three, four, five, of the five inch squares right together. And you’re going to make three rows of that. Then you’re going to sew this one right here, four whites and a colored square. Then three whites and two colored squares. And that’s as easy as that. And then you’ll look at your second one and you’ll put that one together. And your third. Now I have some of those done. So let’s go ahead and sew those together. So I know that my, this is, I know that my blocks are at the top. And this is block two right here. And see how we’re making the center of the heart right here where it dips down. And then this is the side over here. And you can see that I labeled them block one. Otherwise you have to keep going back to your pattern and referring. But this way, I’m like ready to go. And so what we’re going to do is we’re going to sew this block here. Block one to block two to block three. So it’s like a giant nine patch. So let’s go ahead and go to the sewing machine on these. Now the white isn’t going to show. If you’re just a little bit off on sewing your white blocks together, that’s not going to show. When you get down here where you have a colored block next to a white block, that’s going to show. So you want to make sure that you get those pretty lined up.


So let’s go to the sewing machine and sew these big blocks together. You know when you sew a quilt like this it’s so gratifying because it just goes together so quickly. And I”m just going to take a few anchoring stitches. And I still, you know, I’m a nester so I like to nest my little seams. And we’re going to go along here, a quarter inch seam. Now we’re ready to add that third block. And because we have them labeled, we know one, two, three goes right here. And so we’ll just line them up carefully. I’m going to take a few little anchoring stitches here. Keep my needle down so that I can let go of it and position the rest of these. Alright so we’re going along here. And again I like to nest my seams, keeps everything lined up. Now one of the fun things to think about with pixelated quilts is that if you can get your hands on some graph paper, you can do this. Like you can come up with a design and color in the squares that you want and almost anything can be pixelated. So it’s fun to think about all the different options. Alright. Now I just sewed two seams and just like that this giant first row is done. Look at that. Just two big seams and we’ve got the top third done. Now we’re ready to do the middle.


And so we’ve got, this is the left side, so I have middle row left side. Here’s our whole center of the heart and then here is the other side over here. And of course you’re going to watch, you want to make sure that you, you know, when you put your little tag on make sure that it’s in the upper left corner but it tells you where to go so that you make sure that your heart is going like this. And you don’t have one side like this and one side like this. That would be terrible. Alright so let’s sew these two together and this makes the middle section. Honestly I’ve done these for so long and have done them with counting and this is so much easier. And this one because it’s all colors, you know, it’s. I match up my seams. I do nest them up but it’s not one of those things that is going to gariously show if I get it a little off. And then there’s our first half. And then we’re going to put this piece together over here like that. And make sure they’re lined up. So these rows are going to get kind of big and cumbersome as you’re going along so just be careful, take your time. Sew your quarter of an inch right down the side. Alright so now we have this second row done right here. And we’re onto the third.


Look how fast this is going together. Alright here is our one block. Here’s the middle and here’s the other side. That’s just the tail end of our heart. And we’re going to line this up right here and sew these two together. Now I’m losing my presser foot here now. Make sure it stays lined up. And then we add one more side to this. Now these are easy sides to add because these two outside squares, they’re just all white so you can’t get it wrong. It’s five by five, 25 little squares in these.And you’re just going to, it doesn’t matter what side you sew it to, it’s going to work out so this row is the ahhh! No worry row. Alrighty. Alright so now we have our three rows done and let’s sew them together. I have this one stretched out nice here so I’m just going to take the middle one and I’m going to sew it to this. I just have to make sure I have it going the right way. Yes, this way. We’re going to fold them together and just sew right along this. Match up these two. You can pin if you want but because we can match at every little seam, they’re just five inch squares, so every little seam we can match up, I don’t feel like I need pins on this because it’s pretty easy to keep track of where you are. Alright so now we’re going to sew this one together and keep those lined up.


So since this is such a simple quilt, this is a great time to take a closer look at that quarter inch seam. So the first thing you want to look at is the edge that’s on your pre cut. Now most pre cuts these days have this pinked edge right here. And you want to lay it down and you want to make sure how they’ve measured it because some of them measure from the inside to the inside of the peak and some of them measure from the outside. So you want to take that into account with your quarter inch. If you’re cutting your squares yourself you’re going to have a straight edge to work with and that makes it super easy. You can also get a quarter inch foot for your sewing machine. Every sewing machine they should sell one for every different kind of sewing machine. There’s this cool quarter inch tape that you can put your needle goes right where the red line is and you’re just going to put that on here and do it. A lot of people use painter’s tape. You can kind of put it on there and stack it up. There’s markings on your sewing machine. I have a marking right here that says quarter inch and there’s a line to follow. And that’s what I tend to do. I tend to use that line. But what you’re going to do is you’re going to lay that down right on that quarter inch line and you’re going to sew along. And it’s a great time to see how you do. Sew a little seam, take your ruler and measure it and see how you did. See if you are on the quarter of an inch. And I am right on there with mine. And so that’s just a great time to practice. Also you can look at some machines’ needles move back and forth and you want to look and make sure that where your needle hits and whatever edge you’ve made hits, it lines right up for that quarter inch. So I hope this helps you in perfecting that quarter inch and in making this great pixelated heart quilt.


How often do you get to see me make a whole quilt during a tutorial, right? That’s how quick these are. Alrighty. So again I’m just going to line this up and head back over here for the very last row. Alrighty. Now show and tell time. Just like that. Look at this. Isn’t that great? They’re so quick and easy. So don’t be afraid to grab some graph paper, make your own designs. I want to show you the quilt I made earlier this year. And I bought a kit online and I loved all the different background fabrics that were on it. This is just from stash. These are stash fabrics. They’re all lights. They’re all different and yet it shows that color out in the middle. And I just think it comes together beautiful. So don’t be afraid. You know we have all these white squares on here but you could use your own squares. Also if your squares, if you find that they’re too bright, you’re not liking that big contrast, flip them over. Don’t be afraid to use the other side of your square. And don’t be afraid to make your own design. This is a really fun project, super easy. Also these are squares so you can make this, you know, I could just see Misty wanting to make this in little 2 ½ inch squares. I could see all that happening. And so remember it’s just a square. Have fun with this. Draw it out on some graph paper, whatever you want to do. And we hope you enjoyed this tutorial on the Pixelated Heart quilt from the MSQC.