Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. And I’ve a fun project for you. Take a look at this quilt behind me. This is our take on the asterisk quilt. And because the synonym of asterisk is ditto that’s what we’re calling it, the Ditto quilt. Because you basically do the same block and we just do it over and over to make this cool look. So to make this quilt you’re going to need two packages of five inch squares. And we have used Kona white solids. You’re also going to need one roll of 1 ½ inch strips and we have used Kona cotton solids black color story. For your outer border you’re going to need a half a yard of fabric. And for your backing you’re going to need  3 ½ yards of horizontal seams. You will also need your favorite squaring tool. 

So to make this block it’s basically made out of five inch squares. And you’re going to take your whole pack and you’re going to cut it on the diagonal just like this. Alright so you can stack up a few. I generally recommend four or five depending on how sharp your blade is. And then you’re going to have these two pieces, you’re going to put a black strip in between them. Now you want your black strip to be long enough that when you square it, it actually makes the point out here on either side. And so what we’re going to do is we’re going to cut a piece about eight inches. And that’s a little bit of overkill but it will be, it will be good when you get it, you know, so you don’t have a short corner. Alright so let me look at this right here. We’ve got our ruler is 7 ½ and we’re going to go up here to eight. Alright now you want to center these and so I’m just going to fold this right here and finger press a little fold line right here on both sides. And then I’m going to open them back up and I’m going to take my black strip right here and I’m going to fold it in half as well. So I’m just going to take this right here and fold it right in half. And I’m going to crease both sides of this. You can do this with your iron or you can finger press it or you can make a little mark on there. And then you want these creases to all line up next to that crease. So basically I’m going to take this one and I’m going to lay it on here. And if you fold them so that, you know, your crease is down, those will nest into each other when you lay them on there. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to sew this a quarter of an inch on this side. Now you’ll notice we’ve used a black and white fabric for this. You know, it’s a two color project. So these kind of projects make great college  quilts if you want two colors, you know, or things like where, I just love two color quilts. I think they’re very pretty, very stark. This one I think is just gorgeous. Oh, I was going to iron that but you know what, what we want to do is we want to add the other side on this because if we iron it first we will lose our little pleat and we will have to do that over. So I’m going to sew this side down a quarter of an inch right here. And visually you want to check to make sure that they’re still lining up and then you can lay those two little creases on top of each other. 

Alright now we’ll press it. And so I’m just going to come right over here, move these things out of the way. And I’m just going to press it from the top. And I’m going to roll it back this side and roll it back that side. You want to make sure that there’s no pleats or anything on here. And then we need to square this block. And so what we’re going to do is we’re going to grab any squaring tool. And I just have a ten inch ruler here. As long as it has this type of a diagonal on it you can use it to square. I like to fold my block like this and then make sure that these two strips are lined up. Make a little crease here because that’s going to tell me where the center of the strip is and make a little crease here. So then when I lay my ruler on there we’re going to be able to see the line is going right up the middle.The edges are lined up right here. And this should be a 5 ½ inch square. So watch out here, watch these lines as well. And then we’re just going to trim this off right here so this has a nice sharp corner on it. And we will flip it around and do the other side. So 5 ½ lined down on the middle. It lines up here. And we’re going to trim up this little side right here. So you’re going to do this to all your squares. And then we’re going to put four of these together. 

So what we’re going to do, this is our end block right here, this is what we’re shooting for is this one right here. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to take our two pieces right here and I have another one that’s done. And we’re going to put a sashing strip right in the middle of there.And so you’re going to cut one that’s just the right size for you and so it will be 5 ½. It’s the same size that your block is. So what this tells me is that whatever size squares you use for this it’s going to work. We’re just going to, you just have to make sure that this sashing piece fits the size of your block. So I’m going to go ahead and stitch down this one side right here. And then I’m going to press this over. And then I’m going to add my other side to it like this. And I’ll lay it right on top, make sure that both of your, you know, make sure that you’re sashing them so they’re the same. And they want to come toward the middle. And I’m just going to take this over to the sewing machine and line this up on the edge. There we go. And you want to watch, you know, this is a great time to check and make sure that you’re lined up here and here because that will tell you if it’s good and square. Alright then what we’re going to do is we’re going to press this open. And we are then going to add a sashing row right down the center. So we have our two pieces right here, so close to being finished. I mean just like that. And then we’re going to add a sashing strip in here. And so we’re going to lay this on here and sew a quarter of an inch  right down the side. And this piece, let me tell you what size this piece is. So this piece is 11 ½ and that is the size you’ll get with your two blocks with a sashing together. So it’s 1 ½ by 11 ½. We are just going to sew this down the side. Alright then what we’re going to do is we’re going to press this back to the other side. Somebody asked me the other day, you stopped setting your seams. Oh I just forget. I get in a hurry. Set your seam. Go ahead you can set your seam. Alright now this one see how this one is hanging over just a little bit. That means I’m going to start on this side. And I’m just going to let this one line up and then if I do have a little extra I’ll just trim that off. So we’re just going to come down this side like this. And you want to make sure, you know, this is really important. So you want to look right here where these two seams come together. As a matter of fact I’m going to come over here so you can see this really good. So you want to make sure that these two pieces are lining up because this is going to connect across, you know, across the seams. So we want to make sure that these are lined up and you can see that visually. You can pin it if you like.But as you’re putting these together you need to, it’s that sashing trick of being able to make sure that everything stays lined up and together. Alrighty.

So now we’re going to press this open. And our block is complete. And there it is right there. Look how cool that is. Now let me show you how we set this because we have one, two, three, four, across by one, two, three, four, five, down. So 20 blocks. And what we did was we put our blocks up here but then we added a little 1 ½ inch sash in between every block. And then this is one long piece across here. And so when you do that, again, what you want to do when you get your sashings sewn on one side like this, you just want to make sure that when you line these up, you know, I start down here. Make sure that they are lined up with the seam and then I just slide them forward. And then I will often pull this up and check to make sure that we’re still lined up. We’re still going in the right direction and those are going to line up because if you don’t, if you don’t check that you could have to do some ripping. And we just don’t want to do that.

So again we have 20 blocks in this quilt. And we have a little 2 ½ inch border out here on the edge. And again the back of this, look how cool that quilting is. This is a quilting pattern called Sticky Buns. And it makes a quilt that is 51 by 63 so it’s a nice little picnic size to take in the car, lap quilt size. Really fun. And remember if you want it bigger you just make more blocks. We hope you enjoyed this tutorial on the Ditto quilt from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.

Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. We hope you enjoyed watching this video. If you aren’t already part of the Missouri Star Quilt Company family be sure to subscribe so you won’t miss a thing. And if you click that bell it will notify you every time a new tutorial comes out. See you next Friday.