Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC. And I’ve got a fun project for you today. Take a look at this quilt behind me. Isn’t this great? Doesn’t it look like rick rack? To me, it looks just like rick racks so that’s what I called it, the Rick Rack quilt. So to make this quilt what you’re going to need is one roll of 2 ½ inch strips of print fabric. And we have used Sun Prints 2019 by Alison Glass for Andover. You’re also going to need a roll of white background strips. You know whatever background color you choose, you’re going to need a roll of those. For your inner border you’re going to need a ¼ of a yard for this. And for your outer border, you’re going to need 1 ¼ yard and that’s a nice big six inch border. And it, your background, let’s look at the backing. Our backing is 4 ¾ yards. Oh, this is such a cute print. It’s, it’s, she’s got these cute little prints in here with all these tiny little six-inchings and it’s just really a cute print. Then the quilt is going to be about 75 by 75 finished so it’s a great size quilt and a lot of fun to make.

So to make this quilt, we’re going to make it in a semi log cabin fashion. So we’re going to take a strip of color, and once you get going on these you can layer several, and a strip of white. And we’re going to cut them together because you need the same cuts for each block. The first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to cut six 2 ½ inch squares because those are going to make our little half square triangles on the edge of the block. This is what I’m talking about right here. See we’ve got these little half square triangles. So we’re going to cut six 2 ½ inch squares. And I’m going to cut off my selvedge right here. And then with this ruler is so handy because you just lay it on the edge. So we’re going to cut one, two, three, four, five, and six, just like this. Now we’re going to stack these up over here because these are all going to be our little half square triangles. And then we’re going to cut the rest of our strip. Now the rest of our strip is cut in 4 ½, 6 ½ and 8 ½ inch strips. And we’re going to cut them two at a time. So I’m going to cut 4 ½ right here and set those aside. And you’ll want to do this to all your strips. Actually with this quilt behind me I pulled out 36 strips and made it so it was nice and square. So 6 ½ is the second cut. The third cut is going to be 8 ½. And this ruler isn’t long enough for that so I’m going to lay this out here and get my big ruler and I’m going to come over 8 ½ on this one. So here’s 8 ½. So once you get your pieces cut we’re just going to set this over here. And you’ll want to stack them and keep those sizes together. I actually compiled this a block at a time because it was easy for me not to, not to lose track. But for those of you who like to do all your cutting first that’s how you’ll want to cut your strips up.

Now I have one started here. It’s an orange one just like this strip right here. And, and I have most of my half square triangles made except for this one so that I can show you on this one. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to lay this on top of here and we’re going to draw a line side to side so we can make a half square triangle. You can draw the line. You can iron the line and you can even eyeball if you’re, if you’re really good. We’re going to sew right on the line, not on either side but right on it. And so we’re going to come here to the sewing machine and line up our needle. And I just, there we go. And I’m going to line it up there and sew. There we go. And now what I’m going to do is I’m going to trim off the one side of this like this. Oops, can’t trim with a pen, can I? I better use my rotary cutter. That’s always so funny when you get something in your hand and all of a sudden you look at it and you’re like, what’s wrong with this picture? Alright so I’m going to set the seam and roll this back. So we made six 2 ½ inch cuts and five of them you’re going to make into half square triangles just like this. And then one of them you’re going to leave whole. So now we’re going to start making our little block in the corner. And we are going to put two whole blocks, two whole 2 ½ inch blocks and two of our little half square triangles right here just like this. And we’re going to sew that together in a four patch. So let’s go over to the sewing machine. I’m going to line these up just like this. And we are going to go to the sewing machine and sew those down. There’s my first one and here comes the second. Alright, now let’s look and make sure they’re lined up and going the right way. And they are so we’re going to sew those together. I had to check that for a second. I’m like, and they are. There was a little hallelujah moment right there. Alrighty.

Now we’re going to iron this open. And we’re going to build our block around this little block right here. So the whole block is built around this square. And what we’re going to do next is we’re going to take all of our printed pieces of fabric right here and we’re going to sew a half square triangle to the top of them. And we’re just going to make sure that we line up the white with the print so they go on here like this. So let’s go ahead and sew those on. Alright there’s one, let’s do the next. And you want to make sure they’re put on there the same direction. And this is why it’s a good idea to do them all at once so you can watch as they’re going through that they’re all oriented the same way. Alrighty. There we go. Clip them apart. And we’re going to go press these open. Alrighty.

Ok so now we’re ready to build our block and we’re going to start with our white strips and we’re going to orient them like this so it’s going to go this way with our little 4 ½ inch strip and then we’re going to grab our 4 ½ inch color that we put the strip on and we’re going to put it over here like this. See how these are starting to line up already. So let’s go ahead and build this. We’re going to put our white on this side right here. And I actually like to press these open each one. But I’m just going to finger press this back and add this. But when you do it in your house you’ll want to move your iron real close and just sit and sew and iron and sew and iron and sew and iron. Alrighty now I’m going to make sure this little seam nests up and matches up. That’s the only one we’ve got to match. Alright we’re going to press this back and our first round is done. So now we have our little block done and we’re just going to add our next row. Your white, you’re always going to match your white to your white and then this one is going to come over here on this side like this. And I like to lay them out to make sure I’m going the right direction. And we’re going to sew these on. Alright now we’ll add that row on the top and I’ll finger press that down. You have to be careful finger pressing because you want to make sure that you don’t get a fold in your seam. That’s why I usually just go right to the iron but. Alright let me make sure this is lined up pretty good here. And the next row again, let’s press it. These are so fun when they start coming together. We’re going to put our white on here and our long piece on this side. So we’ll go do that. I get like a horse to water with these things. It’s like I’ve got to see it finished, it’s so cute. And now this side one over here. And I do like to start from the end or the, I mean either way works but the end when they get this big I like to flip it around and start from the end and do my lining up last. I’m not sure why that happens but I do. The others I’m like all ok doing from the top. I don’t know why. But when I get to this long one I always kind of flip it around. Alrighty. Now let’s press this open. Oh that’s so pretty. Look how cute that is. Isn’t that great?

Now the fun part with this, I set these together so the whites came together to form squares. Now I’ve got some other ones over here. And you’re just going to put them together like this so that all the whites come together in the middle. And it makes this cool pattern like this. But because these are set up in kind of a log cabin style there’s lots of ways to set them. So you have fun with that set up. Let’s look at ours right here. We’ve got, we’ve got, this is our block right here so we’ve got one, two, three, four, five, six, across and six down. I sewed those together in big blocks of four. And then put them up and then sewed my big rows together. So this block of four goes together. And the cool thing about this is that when you put them this way, you have your blocks running this way and this way so you’re not really matching anything up except for this little triangle down here on the bottom. So when you go to sew these together just make sure that this little piece down here is nested and it lines up so that those little points match. And those are really the only points you have to match. But it just makes a darling quilt and it goes together so cute and easy. And we hope you enjoyed this tutorial on the Rick Rack quilt from the MSQC.