Triple Play: Totally Tulips Quilting Tutorial

with
Jenny Doan
Misty Doan
Natalie Earnheart

Triple Play: Totally Tulips Quilting Tutorial

We’re starting a new tradition here at Missouri Star: Triple Play! Once a month, Jenny, Misty, and Natalie will each demonstrate their own, unique take on a classic MSQC pattern.This week these talented Doan ladies are demonstrating three new ways to use one of our favorite MSQC blocks: Totally Tulips! Jenny incorporates those pretty flower blocks into a tulip table runner. Misty created a pretty Tulip Garden wall hanging, and Natalie combined the tulip block with the dizzy daisy in one gorgeous quilt called Tulip Fields. As always, each of these projects is quick, easy, and fun!
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video transcript

Jenny: Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC. And I look a little lonely up here, don’t I? It’s our Triple Play week but because we’re filming this during the quarantine and we’re practicing social distancing, we are going to do this one at a time. So you’re still going to get three ideas and they’re right here in the studio. They’re just six feet away from me and you can’t see them.


So for this month’s Triple Play we chose the tulip block. We have some tulips here. We were excited about springtime and this is my project right here. It’s this little tulip table runner. And I’m just going to show you all three of the projects so you can get excited and be thinking about them. This is Natalie’s project right here. And she combined the tulip block with the crazy daisy. And here’s Misty’s right here. So we have three fun ideas for you and they’re all going to show you how to make them. We’re just going to start with me.


So to make my table runner, and you see I have these lovely tulips on there. But to make my table runner I used one charm pack. And I used Super Bloom by Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket quilts for Andover. And you know when you get fabrics for these, you’re just not sure how it’s going to work out for your projects and it always works out beautifully. So I also have a half a yard of background fabric. So this beige or you know a white or a cream, whatever matches your fabric. A few little scraps like, this is the stem so this is a 1 ½ inch strip. I actually took mine out of my binding. And for your binding you’re going to need about a half a yard. If you’re going to include your stem in there I would go to ¾. And then my border, I just cut my little squares in half to use more of my squares. Because really for the tulips themselves you only use one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight blocks just for the tulip and so out of charm pack you can get several of these. This is one of those great things where if you want to make like Easter gifts or something like that, this would be a great, fun, springtime present. Quick and easy and you get two or three. I don’t know how many because there’s math involved. But you’re get a few out of this charm pack right here. So let me show you how to make the tulip because this is super simple.


What we’re going to do is we’re going to select four squares that we want to use for our flower. And they’re all going to be five inches just like this. And we are going to sew one 2 ½ inch square on the corner of all four of our squares. So I have four here. And my other ones I’ve already sewn the square on. So I’m going to go over to the sewing machine and I drew a line corner to corner right here, drew a line corner to corner and then I’m going to head over to the sewing machine and sew that line. And so I just line up my 2 ½ inch square in the corner and then I’m going to sew right on that line. And then I’m going to trim this part off right here. And we’re going to press this open. Now you can use a rotary cutter or scissors. I’m just kind of old school, I like the scissors. I always have a pair handy. And that’s just kind of what I gravitate toward. Alright so I’m just going to press this back. And you’re going to have four of these.


Now the fun part for me in this is how we lay them out. So what we’re going to do, for the top of our tulip, we want to put our squares into the middle. So we’ve got our two squares in right here. And we’re going to have for the bottom of our tulip we’re going to have our two squares out. So we something makes this tulip shape just like that. So we’re going to sew this together as a four patch. And we’ll do that right now. So I”m just going to sew a quarter of an inch down the side on this. And then the same with these bottom two squares, we’ll sew, line those right up and sew right down the side. There we go. And then we’re just literally going to sew this together like a four patch. So we’ve got the two tops sewn together and now we have these two bottom pieces. And I’m going to fold this in half and we’re just going to sew right down the side. I’m going to make sure my middle center seam is nested. So now we’re just going to sew these right down the side a quarter of an inch. Line up my middle seam, nesting those seams and that means one set of fabric goes this way and one set goes this way. And then meet in the middle with no room in between. And that will give you a nice

clean junction where they come together. And let’s press this open. And just like this our little flower is done right here. And now we need to do our leaves on the bottom. And I did not have any green, you know I’m one of those people who is like the flower is red, the leaves are green. And so I had to use, you can see on mine I used both the gold color and the blue color. It looks fine, totally fine.


So when we make our leaves what we’re going to do is we’re going to take two of the same color of our squares and we are going to draw our line quarter of an inch, I mean, draw our line right down, diagonally and sew a quarter of an inch on both sides of that. And that’s going to make our little leaves. And so I’m setting up mine so my presser foot is just to the, just to the left of that line. And then I’m just going to flip this around and again sew right to the left of that line. Now you’ll want to square these up because you want these to be 4 ½. So I am going to cut these apart on the line. That gives me two. And then I’m going to take my clearly perfect slotted trimmer, the set A and you can use whatever squaring tool you’d like. And I am going to trim these to 4 ½ and make sure they are exactly 4 ½. And so I just trim this right here and trim up here. There we go, hang on. There we are. And then this one as well. Now this one right here, see I have a little bit of the fabric peeking over. I want to make sure that gets caught in my trim so watch that so that you don’t trim all on one side and then end up with that little bit of extra because you don’t want that. Look, I love this, I love this about this tool. That is the waste right here. Alright let’s open these up. And going to press that and open it up. I’ve got stuff piled everywhere here. Let me get some of these out of the way. Alright. So now we’ve got these two little half square triangles and we are going to sew those together so that they actually point, you can see I’m a little angley challenged. We have to have one set that goes out this way and one set that goes out that way. So watch how you put them together because very easily you could get two leaves this way and that only happens in a bad storm. So I’m going to sew these two together like this. And we’re just going to sew a quarter inch right down the side. Let me get here on my chair. And now we’re ready to add that stem piece. Alright let me press these open. And I’m going to press this one as well.


So we’re right here with our leaves and we’re ready to add this stem. This is a 1 ½ inch piece by, let’s see, how big are these? 8 ½. So 1 ½ by 8 ½. Mine is a little longer. This is how I sew. I’m going to put my, sew my little strip in there and just trim it off. And so this is my stem piece. And you’ll notice it’s not even a green stem. I actually feel really proud of myself to have used these different colors. And then have it look so cute. You know we don’t give the fabric designers near enough credit. So thank you, Edyta for that because this is a, this is a little bit of a challenge for me but fun. So I just trimmed off the bottom of my stem. Now I’m going to press this open. And now I’m going to add my leaves on the other side right here. And sew these down. A quarter of an inch down the side like this. And then we’re going to press these open just like this. Alright. So now this is our stems with our leaf. We’re going to add it to our top flower. And what I like to do here is, this center seam, I just want to make sure that it’s centered in between on that stem. And then these sides, it should line up perfectly but I like to look at that middle part and make sure that it’s centered. Because it would be a little rough to have a, you know, your stem off to one side. Nobody wants to pick, so it’s better to check first. So I’m taking a few stitches, going to line this up, sew a quarter of an inch, just like that. And that is how to make a tulip, just quick and simple. And I’m going to make two of these for my table runner, two little tulips. But I show you this because all of the tulips, no matter what size we’re showing you today, are all made like this. You know your little square in the corner on four blocks. Your leaves are half square triangles, your little stem. They’re made like this.


Now the center of my runner right here, this is an 11 ½ inch square. This is something that if you know me and runners at all, you know I rarely put anything fancy in the center we’re going to do this. We’re going to set, we’re going to set something on there and you don’t want to waste hard work and quilting underneath, you know, I mean, this intricate block that you’re going to set something on and never see. So I always do some kind of a plain block in the middle. Now my outside edge here, I just took my little five inch squares and cut them in half and sewed them together in a long strip and put them all the way down the sides. And then on the end right here I just used a straight strip. You could easily do your little strip border on the end as well. I just had this little piece of fabric with it. And it’s one 2 ½ inch strip will easily get both pieces out of it. . And so that’s how I made my little runner.

Ok so let me clean up a bit and next up is Misty.


Misty: Hey everybody. This is just a little bit weird to not be up here together but we are trying our best to stay healthy. We hope you are well. And I am excited about this because tulips are one of my favorite flowers and I love how happy they are in the spring when you look out the window and they’re in the garden. And so I made this little wall hanging I’m calling Tulip Garden. And my idea was to play with the different heights that we see in nature and try making our tulips kind of stagger in height. So that’s what we’re going to do today. It’s constructed the exact same way, even though my tulips are a little bit smaller. And so I started with this Serenity Lake by Artisan Batiks for Robert Kaufman. And it has some really fun greens, blues, and purples in there. And it’s just really happy. And so what I did for my blooms is I went ahead and cut that in fourths so I had 2 ½ inch squares. And then snowballed my corners just like Jenny taught us to make the tops of my tulips. And so I have a few of those ready here. And then this has three different blocks. They all finish up the same size. But we’re going to start with the A block. And so that is this one here. And you can see all we’ve done is we have our bloom, our, you know, stem leaf section and then we attached a 4 ½ inch square to the top. And that makes our block measure 4 ½ by 12. And so this is the size that we’re going for for all of our blocks when they finish up. So this is our A block.


And then on the B block, what we’re going to do is we’re going to again take our stem sections and we’re going to attach some rectangles to them before we sew in our stems. And so on top of that, let me make sure I tell you correctly. You’re going to sew a 2 ¼ by 4 ½ inch rectangle of your background color to the top of each of your leaves. And then we’re going to set in our stem. And we’re going to sew that together just like so. And that’s going to give us this B block. So that’s really easy. And then the C block is done much the same way. We’re just using a little bit, you know, smaller square in here to just give it that different height. So this is 2 ¼ by 2 ½ . I know they look square but it’s just not quite. It’s a quarter inch different. We’ve put that stem in there. And then we put our bloom in and we attach a, let me make sure I tell you correctly again, 2 ½ by 4 ½ inch rectangle at the top. And then when we do that we have our three different block sizes. And they stagger just right so that we get different heights but all of them end up 4 ½ by 12 inches. And then I just sashed them with 1 ½ inch sashing and it went together really quick. I also added a little green strip there to kind of anchor it like grass because it seemed right. And it was really quick and easy. And up next is Natalie.


Natalie: Hey everybody, it’s Natalie. And I’m here to teach you my quilt, it’s my turn. My quilt is called Tulip Fields. And it’s 61 by 76 which I think is great for a picnic or throwing over your legs when you’re on the couch. I used Cultivate Kindness by Deb Strane for Moda fabrics. I love this line. It’s so bright and springy. It has all these beautiful colors. And because I had a layer cake I was able to get my leaves and my stems all out of that fabric. There is quite a bit leftover so you guys can do fun stuff with your extras. Now my tulip block is constructed exactly the same way Mom’s is. So I’ve just made one out of my fabric to show you. It has the same five inch squares, the same snowballed corners, everything here is the same. The difference in the pattern is I put mine right together with no sashing in between so it makes this really cute little leafy chevron. I thought that was super cute. And my secondary block, Mom called it the Crazy Daisy which made me giggle in the background but it’s actually called the Dizzy Daisy. So if you want to look up that pattern and make the Dizzy Daisy quilt you can. I thought it was really fun to combine these two flower blocks in rows because it just reminded me of the Dutch tulip fields. And they’re just, it’s just really cute. So let me show you how to make this block because you haven’t seen that yet.


It’s made using five inch squares. So I cut my layer cake into fourths. And then all you do is add three 2 ½ inch snowballed corners, one, two, three, just on three corners. So I’m going to go ahead and sew those together so you can see how that works. We’re just sewing straight across the middle. You can draw the line or you can press the line if you want. And I’m going to go ahead and what I do is I put them all on at the same time. I just sew one, then I turn it a little bit, sew the next one and then turn and sew the next one. So right down the center. I’m using this great diagonal seam tape which makes it super easy to keep them straight. So then I literally just turn it, throw the next one on. Keeping that lined up. And then the next one. So, and it doesn’t really matter which sides, as long as your corners are right next to each other, just one, two, three. Alright. Now we trim off these little outside triangles because you don’t need that part. And then I’m going to press them back. It’s just a flip and sew method. It’s super easy. Get that nice and flat.


And then to lay them out you just have to make sure they’re going the right direction. So this one points up and this one points down. And then really if you sew them all together like this you’ll be able to make your whole quilt because the top and bottom are identical. But I wanted to make sure I didn’t have two fabrics that were the same touching so I laid mine out ahead of time. But if your fabrics are all the same or if you’re not worried about it you can sew everything in these strip sets. Because ultimately it’s the same. You just flip it. So hopefully that makes sense. Alright, so there you go. That is the layout of the little Dizzy Daisy block. So I”m going to go ahead and sew this together. I’m going to do it just the same way Mom does where you turn this to the side and sew that one and then I’m going to turn this one and sew it as well. And then I’m going to keep these together just like Mom showed us. You want to make sure that you’ve got the little diamond in the middle and that all of your little flower petals are pointing. But if you keep them together from the table then they’re going to line up just right. I just center up that middle seam. And the diamond points are the only ones I worry about. The rest of them are all off set so it’s kind of a no stress block. I had a lot of fun making this one. Alright I’m going to press it open and hopefully it looks ok. Alright, so we’re going to press this, get it nice and flat. It should look good. And there’s our block. I made a few so you can see the cute different colors that I used. This fabric is so cute. I love these little trucks with the flowers.


So I ended up making 15 Dizzy Daisy blocks. And they’re in rows, you know, Well, one, two, three. And then I made eight, no ten. One, two, three, four, five, times two is ten tulip blocks. I have little 1 ½ inch strips to separate them. And then these, I think, are four inches. Let me just double check. Yep, four inch strips because it ended up getting a little bit long and narrow so I wanted to widen that. So these are four and these are five inches. For your border you’ll need 1 ¼ yards. And then the backing is this super cute, it has all these pretty, like happy moments and welcome each new day, focus on the good.

Alright, well that’s my quilt. I’m going to go ahead and pass it back to Mom so we can wrap it up.


Jenny: So we hope you enjoyed our tulips today. We had so much fun with them. Again here’s mine, a table runner. Misty’s little wall hanging. Natalie’s cute quilt. But you know what, these are so easy and so quick we got a little carried away. Here’s another one in different colors, a nice big long runner again. And this one I put a square in the middle. Here’s, look how cute this would be on your porch. Isn’t this darling? Three in a row, like Misty’s only big. And then you know, if you just want to do one, look how cute this is. So these tulips are fun. They’re quick and easy. You can do them with all kinds of fabric and all kinds of ideas. So try some of these ideas. We hope you enjoyed this and we’ll see you next time for Triple Play.

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