Fair charm celebrates the power of flipping corners.

Angela's one block design relies on flip corners, ombré fabric, and floating stars and will add a little extra flair with clipped corners, and I'll show you how to bind it.

Join us to create a blue ribbon worthy quilt on today's episode of Love of Quilting.

Funding for Love of Quilting is provided by.

The Bernina 990.

If it can be imagined, it can be created.

APQS longarm quilting machines allow you to express your creativity.

APQS quilt forever.

The Warm Company manufacturer of battings and fusibles for quilts, crafts and wearable arts.

Panasonic, maker of the 360 degree freestyle, cordless iron, magic quilting and crafting collection, ironing sprays, and more.

Hi there and welcome to the 4700 series of Love of Quilting.

I'm Sara Gallegos, and I'm Angela Huffman.

Angela, this is a really stunning one block quilt that you have here.

Thank you.

I had a whole lot of fun.

It's called Fair Charm and it's got a lot of blues in it because at the fair, we all dream of blue ribbons on the quilts and everything in the back ties things.

Yeah.

So I worked with an ombré fabric, for this quilt.

And there's also batik, so there's both ombre and batiks mixed into this quilt.

And sometimes people get bunched up about mixing like that.

Like they want it to be all batik, so they want it to be all ombre.

And I hope that you see that you can mix it and it's all okay.

Please.

Okay.

Please do.

I mean, there's so many interesting combinations you can make if you'll mix things up a little bit.

Yeah, yeah.

And so I have a piece of ombre fabric here.

And I just thought I would talk a little bit about prepping your fabric for cutting.

So when you're talking about yardage and you're going to cut it into units, the first thing that I would do is I would go to the ironing board and I would get some fabric spray.

You can see this has some definitive, wrinkles in it.

And I would spray it with my fabric spray, hot iron with steam nice and crisp, nice and flat.

That's going to really help your accuracy a great deal.

It's kind of a pro tip.

Take the time to do it.

So if you take a look at this ombre, let's just look at how this particular ombré is printed.

So this one starts dark at the, outer edges and goes light towards the middle.

And if you think about the traditional way that you would cut yardage for, for cutting out your units, you would, go salvage to salvage, right?

You would kind of hang the fabric and wait till it hangs kind of politely.

And then you would lay it down on your mat and you would start slicing your, your units.

Sure.

Yeah.

And what that does with ombre is it gives you in that strip, dark to light.

And in this case, back to dark again.

You'll get darks and lights and all the different shades in between.

And that may be exactly what you want.

That was not what I wanted, because, in the black itself, we have half square triangles and one side.

I want it to be a little lighter than the other side.

You can see on this block there are two close in color.

This was one of the first ones I did, and I just sliced it kind of like this.

And they're just too close.

There's not enough contrast in the ombre to really see those half square triangles.

So this black you can see has a little bit more, contrast in the ombre.

So it picks up that half square triangles a little bit better than this one does.

So dynamic in order to get the the the dynamic part of ombre and ombre is quite dynamic rather than folding selvage to salvage.

Instead, what I'm going to do is I'm going to fold it in this direction.

So now my darks are on top of the other darks, my lights are on top of the other lights, and then it goes dark here and now.

I have just more control over the swath that I cut, whether it's a light swath or a dark swath.

Easily access those shades, and then I can sub cut those into whatever units that I want.

So, prepping the fabric and thinking about how you're going to fold the fabric, for cutting is going to help you, get that contrast that you want.

So, so we're going to start out with, some half square triangles.

And so here's, the swaths that I cut.

And you can see how dramatic that is from the ombre and ombre.

I think it's a little intimidating because you see it and you go, I don't know.

But it really does, make a difference.

So we're going to do half square triangles eight at a time.

And, you can use a ruler like this.

You can see this one is just a little bit too short, like this ruler.

What you would do is you would put that center line on that center diagonal, and then you would mark on each side, and that would give you your sewing lines.

So you can do that.

Sometimes though, when you're working with a bigger square like this eight at a time, it's not quite big enough to reach that.

And you can see I can guess, but what if I don't guess correct?

I don't want to be wonky.

Yeah.

So in this case I'm just going to use a larger long ruler.

And I do have a hideaway pin here.

And so what I'm marking is not the sewing line.

What I'm marking is the cutting line.

And you are going to sew a quarter inch away from, each side of this, diagonal line.

And we've got our quarter inch foot on here, and this is a little bit bigger than what I'm going to need.

And I'll be trimming these half square triangles down to the size that I'm after, which is a five inch size.

So if you are reading a pattern for half square triangles, eight at a time, say, and you want to upsize your blocks, how much do you add to kind of like an inch.

An inch, yeah.

For that big square, you know, for the eight at a time.

Sure.

And the way you would know that this is going to be a good thing for you, in particular for you personally, is to just measure, like when you do eight at a time, half square triangles that are supposed to be the size when you're done.

Are they right?

Are they?

And if they're not, then give yourself a little forgiveness and just make that initial square a wee bit bigger, right.

And then trim them down.

Now that is extra work and it is extra fabric.

But in the long run it should help you again with your accuracy.

Yeah, you might have a more precise quilt and I think the blocks go together a little bit easier to you if you don't have that perfect quarter inch seam.

Just one size a bit.

And so you're just using that edge of the, needle or the edge of the foot.

And what I like to do is I like to stop with the needle down and the presser foot up, and I just kind of run that fabric right next to the needle.

So the point of my triangles kind of kissing the needle, and I can see that that foot's going to drop right down on my line.

So that's kind of how I begin.

And if I'm chain piecing I use that same method.

I just and I noticed that you have the machine set up so that when the needle goes into the down position, the foot raises up just a little tiny.

Yeah, it's enough so that you can get that next piece of fabric in and your machine may have different levels that you can set for that.

Where when you put the needle in the down position, some machines don't have that ability to have the, the foot lift up, but you might have a knee lift where you can, use that on your machine to raise the foot, or you can just raise the foot the way you always do.

And it's usually called like a pivot or a hover.

And so if you're looking for how do I set that in my machine in the manual or asking questions from your retailer, you can find out pivot hover or something like that okay.

So there we go.

And I'm going to take that same long ruler.

And we're going to cut it down that north south.

And I'm just lining up as many points here on the mat on the, ruler as I can with that bottom edge.

I'm going right through that.

Oh, I forgot the I lost my cutter.

I'm just lining up as many as I can.

And if you don't have a rotating mat at home, you can also, either rotate yourself and walk around to the other side of your cutting surface, or you can just flip it like that.

I do have a big exposed, open cutting table, and I like that because you'll see me run all the way around off of it as I'm cutting things.

Mine at home when side is set up, for my cat.

So it's all snuggly warm and supervising everything and one, one corner and then, all my, rulers are set up in the other corner, and, Yeah, but I do.

I run around so I get three sides.

I can run around, but one side is the cat is pet the cat.

Pet the cat.

Yeah.

A little pit stop to pet the cat.

There we go.

Okay, so now we've got eight at a time, and I'm just going to press that.

And I'm going to press these all towards that darker.

Ombré fabric.

And then we're going to trim these down.

So I said these needed to be trimmed down to that five inch side.

And I have some of these already done.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So I have a ruler here that has a really strong diagonal.

I'm going to lay that on that really strong diagonal.

And you can see there's just a little bit of excess all around the outside.

So I want to make sure that that strong diagonal is on that diagonal seam.

There's a little bit of excess on the outside of the ruler and a little bit of excess on the outside of the five inch line, and I'm going to trim that up on two sides and then rotate that around and just do the same thing.

But this time, not only am I looking at that diagonal line, but I'm really, really focusing on that five inch line on my ruler and making sure it's right on that cut edge.

And I will say that if you have a ruler that kind of slides on you, then add some kind of stability.

There's all different things you can add to the back of a ruler to give you a little bit more stability.

So it's not moving on.

Yeah, like grip or dots or little sticky tape that you can add to give it a little friction.

Something to help.

Yep.

So there's my there's my half square triangle.

And what we're going to do is we're going to add two little flippy corners.

And really this quilt, there's a lot of flippy corner action.

So I've already marked the diagonal.

And here we're going to put it in these two corners.

So flippy corners on the two corners okay.

Yeah.

The power the flippy corner is always the way I feel about how, how much a flippy corner can add to something and how easy it is to do on a quilt.

Yeah.

It really kind of frames and, this particular block nicely.

It's a technique you use a lot, right?

I do use it a lot.

Yeah, I like it a lot of fun.

So do you go to the fair?

We have a big for each fair and auction.

And in my state, it's not in my town, but.

Yeah.

And I used to go a lot, especially as a candidate for fiction.

So what?

What are they auctioning?

So, kids will come in and trim this a quarter inch away from what you just sewed, I. Okay, great.

Yeah.

So I lived in an area that had a lot of farmland and a lot of kids that were farmers, and they would bring their livestock to auction.

And just like you get a blue ribbon for a quilt, they could get a blue ribbon for a steer.

And, they would be selling them for me.

It's an yeah.

Yeah, it was fun.

My family is fairly charitable.

And so my grandpa Leonard always, he had a body shop and worked on cars in a big barn with all these cars in it.

And one time I went to visit and I just heard this, like, cow mooing.

And I go out to the barn and next to like, the vintage cars is just a giant steer.

Oh, God.

I wanted the stalls because they felt bad for the kid.

They had the skinny cow so they bought it and fattened it up.

Goofy.

Funny.

How about you?

You go to the fair.

I do not, I do every year.

But I do not, go to the auction, you know, I'm sure that they have it there.

Yeah.

You should just go walk around and see the animals.

It's really fun.

And the kids are so proud.

So I've got two here.

So you can see half square triangles with the two flippy corners.

What?

We're going to do is we're going to frame these out.

And so here is what we're after.

This is what we're after.

And I guess I should point all these in the same directions that you see there.

So that you see what where we're headed okay.

So the first thing we're going to do is we've got a rectangle here, I'm using batik and I've already put the flippy corner on this one.

So I've just put that square down.

So down the diagonal cut it a quarter inch away from where I sewed.

And I have, pressed it.

And so these two are going to go on top.

And really what I should have done.

And I'm going to press this one again is I have this seam going towards the white here.

This one really needs to go towards the dark here.

So that the two, when they come together that, that we can nest these edges.

And I will say that when I have to, if I've sewn something wrong or ironed something wrong, do you have that?

Can you hear me?

That pin a lot of times.

What?

I'll do is I will, press this down, and then this is just it has a softener in it, and it just helps this fabric have a new memory.

And so I'm going to put the direction that I want the, fold to go on the top.

So when I do fold this back, that fabric flips towards the direction that I want it to flip.

And that moisture just kind of helps the fabric have a new memory to that fold.

So we're going to put these two together.

And then these two are going to nest now which makes that much easier to sew.

And that's just a quarter of an inch down that side.

Yeah.

The kids and I, we will go to the Kentucky State Fair, multiple multiple multiple times because, I mean, the little baby ducks that go down the little slides, they have this thing where they, the little baby ducks, like, swim around.

They come up this little ramp and there's a little seed, like, right outside their reach.

And they get a little, little bit of the seed.

And then they slide down the ramp into this, the water and they come right around again.

I mean, that's like endless joy right there.

Yeah.

All right.

Let me press that.

So we've done one side.

On that half square triangle.

And now we're going to do this final side.

So again it is a rectangle.

And we're going to put it on this long side here okay.

And are there any unusual or interesting fair foods snacks at the Kentucky State Fair.

Most of them make my stomach turn.

There's like a fried donut burger.

That donut burger.

Yeah, a fried interesting donut burger.

Yeah.

I have no interest in that.

But then there's also it's just so much fun.

Like the quilt section at the Kentucky State Fair has 400 over 400 quilt hangings, and it's, a lot of people come in and maybe they don't know a lot about quilting, or maybe their only, exposure to quilting was, you know, a grandmother or something.

It's been a while.

And then they walk through and they see these glorious works of art and, you know, some are, some are very personal.

They are like signature quilts or T-shirt quilts and others are are art quilts, and others are very traditional, you know, kind of Lone Star quilts with very traditional feathers is just it's everything you can imagine.

Okay.

So we're going to make four of those.

And so I do have them here made.

And so we're going to make our little block.

Kind to make sure it's all nice together like that.

All right.

So I'm going to hand you those two and if you would so those two together you've got some nesting here.

And the other thing at the fair that I always love too is they have the border collies.

This is over like in the West Wing is where the Kentucky State Fair has, like all the goats and the cows and the roosters and the rooster crowing contest, where they count how many times a rooster crows in an hour and they crow a lot, and, and the mama pig and all the baby pigs, like everything's over there, but they have these border collies and they let, Beautiful.

So I do want to think about the direction that I'm going to press this, because when I put these together, it's going to make my world easier if these nest.

Okay.

So if I can have some of these pressing this way and I can have some pressing that way, it's going to help because right here in the dead center of that block, if anything going to get really bulky, it's that dead center of the block.

So let's try to spread the bulk out as much as possible in the block.

So the, border collies come out and they release the ducks, and then the border collies kind of help the ducks go back into the pen night, and they're working so hard, and the farmer is able to, like, commute to them.

They're so smart.

They are so smart.

And and then I look at my dog and I'm like, you lazy thing.

Like, one of my dogs is part border collie and yeah, super smart and herds herds us herds animals.

Yes.

And it's like they need a job.

They love it.

They're working too.

So.

Oh, you can tell they're having to take that job very seriously.

And they're very happy.

Yeah, that's really neat.

I would like to see that if the if you've got a fair near you, I highly recommend that you take the time to go and check out your state fair.

Now, because I press those in the opposite direction like we were talking, they nest beautifully and we're just going to sew a quarter inch seam down there and we will have our block done.

This is a 12.5in block.

It is a one block quilt.

It's the sashing on this quilt that brings all the sparkles.

So we're gonna talk about the sashing in a minute, but it's a one block quilt.

And then using that on break gives you those lights in the darks.

Yeah, I might have to come visit your state fairs, but I can see the border collies.

Yeah, sounds pretty neat.

I really want to go to the Texas State Fair.

I understand, that's amazing.

Okay, I really want to go to the Iowa State Fair because they have a butter cow.

Oh, my God, we have a cow.

What exactly is a butter cow?

We have a cow.

Well, they have a big thing of butter.

They've carved into like a cow.

Like a big cow.

Wow.

Yeah.

Doesn't that melt?

I am sure they know how to make it so it doesn't, There's probably some little trick to that.

But.

Yeah.

Butter cow, a butter cow.

Okay, so I'm going to use that same pen because we talked about how all of those little seams coming together are going to make it a little bulky.

So if you use that same solution and that will help, lay this down, even a little bit of water there will also help to lay that down flat.

You could also spin that scene.

That would be a perfect place to spend your seam.

But there is our beautiful block.

And then the only last thing that we need to do is flip corners all around the outside.

I told you this was flippy corner, extravaganza.

Here it is.

So go ahead and do that one.

And you do that on all four, sides of your block.

So you go ahead and you so that I'm just going to bring this one here to show.

So this is one that we've, I've already done.

So I've added those four flippy corners and that is the block.

It's one.

So it's like a pieced snowball block.

Yeah I guess.

Yeah.

So there it is.

So you would trim and press open.

Right.

Cool.

And then this this quilt, I try to make it so that I know that folks have a hard time when they put a block up against a block without a sashing spacer.

Getting all of those seems to line up.

Can't be a challenge.

So yeah, you can imagine if we tried to have this line up, it would be a challenge.

And it's so high contrast.

If you're off by a little bit, you're really going to see it.

So instead I put a strip of fabric sashing between the blocks, but I wanted to add a little sparkle to the sashing.

So here is what we're going to wind up with.

So it's a strip of sashing.

And then we've got two flippy corners on each side.

So we I can just, you know, talk through this because I think we've got the flippy corners down at this point.

And so I've got some batik fabric and I will say this is white on white and it's a batik.

This one is I think it's just a regular print, white on white.

But if I turn this upside down sometimes it's super hard to see right sides or wrong sides.

And I will say, if you've got a black light flashlight next to your, your sewing station, you can turn that on and it'll glow.

You'll know exactly which side is right side and wrong side.

So you're going to do flippy corners.

And I generally do the two opposite sides and then cut because when you press these out you'll see right here how they overlap just a bit.

So don't do two at a time.

Do one at a time.

I do opposites cut and then do the other two opposites and cut.

And that's going to get our sashing strips.

And then you're going to need one.

You're going to need a block for the outside.

Because have you ever seen a quilt where the sashing.

Maybe it's a sashing, but it kind of stops at that outer border and doesn't kind of complete the thought.

Right.

And so I wanted those little stars because they're just so inset and adorable.

I wanted them to complete and go all the way around.

You weren't missing the two little points on the side.

And in order to do that, you're going to need a block with two flippy corners to complete that star all along that outside of.

So you've got your sashing all the way around, but then you're actually adding on the outside edges an additional white border to complete that star.

And this is kind of a cornerstone that lines up with the sashing is that go through the quilt and that'll give you your little inset stars.

Okay.

So the flipping corner on the back on the outside border, the piece border is a rectangle with flippy corners on the four sides.

No boring borders.

I like how you fuzed all of them and then they just go together.

And there you've got your piece border.

Now when I got to that outside Four corners, I clipped the corners.

So if you notice the quilt does not have a right angle at the four corners.

And that was a deliberate choice.

I wanted to just add a little something, something to the outside, do something different.

And it's not hard to do because what I first did is I quilted it.

So it was completely quilted before I clipped the edges.

Okay.

And that way everything was stable and I wasn't dealing with a lot of bias.

It was all stable.

So quilted the whole darn thing clipped the corners.

And I've got, a little piece here to show you.

So this is just an example.

So quilted it and here's my clipped corner, 45 degree corner.

And so what I thought we'd do is we would just do a binding here.

Not because I just want to show you how easy it is.

So if you could run, binding, you're going to run a quarter inch seam and you're going to stop a quarter inch away from the edge of the fabric, the edge of the quilt, just like you would if it were a regular 90 degree angle.

You're going to be surprised at how this is exactly like doing a 90 degree angle with binding on the outside of the quilt.

You're just, doing a 45 when you get there.

Yeah.

And if you've ever been intimidated to do a star shaped quilt, this is a this is showing you how to do the binding.

It's easy.

Okay.

So you said you like to rotate around as if it were a, a regular 90 degree angle, and I actually go backwards.

Okay.

On that just to kind of give that, corner a little bit more off so that it'll stay put, and then let's go ahead and take it fully out of the machine just to show.

So it's the same fold that you would normally do with a 90 degree binding.

So I'm going to do that miter.

So the miter.

So normally it would be down here and you'd flip it up and then you flip it back down.

And then we're just going to sew right down the way you normally would, as if that little corner was not there.

And start right at the very edge.

Start at the edge quarter inch away.

And that is what gives you that fold you need so that you can turn the corner with a little tiny miter in those four.

Those four corners.

So you don't have to overthink it.

Just don't overthink it.

We'll just do one corner.

But you could do, you know, you're going to do if you're going to do Four Corners obviously.

All right.

So let's flip it out and you can see that miter is right there where we need it.

Yeah.

And then we're just going to fold all this back.

You could fold this back and tack it by hand.

I like to do hand binding.

Do you like to to.

No.

You do it up.

Oh.

You do it with like a, I used years ago, which is, you know, me, I use decorative stitches.

And this is where I take to the couch.

That's like, it's even doing my hand.

So by hand.

Yeah.

Beautiful quilt.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Grab a pencil, tips and other useful information.

Coming up next.

This tip was in from Cheryl Burroughs from The Woodlands, Texas.

She says you are quilting experts and I'm grateful for all that I've learned from you.

It's very nice.

My husband of 50 years hung curtain rods in my sewing room so that I could hang fabric strips, leftover binding for charity quilts, quilt rows, and quilt tops that are ready for sandwiching.

Sometimes I'll use a clothespin to attach the pattern onto a binding strip when my sewing table gets overwhelmed.

I've been there, yeah, she says.

I also use a second curtain rod to display a favorite quilt, and that gives me hope when I'm in the midst of chaos and mess on the ten or more quilts that I'm working on, throw same, I like that.

That's awesome.

Okay, this is one of those like why didn't I think of that?

Tips from Bruce Hirn of Martinez, Georgia.

Do you get it?

I get it, I know.

Okay, so for those who get tangled up in their irons power cord, try to thread it through the handle from the other direction and then it stays out of the way and kind of travels with you as you iron.

A simple tip, but it might help others.

I'm not a smart cookie.

I never thought of that.

Simple things.

This is from, Sheryl Eckroth from Enid, Oklahoma.

She says, Sara and Angela, I love your show, and I watch it every week.

Thanks, Sheryl.

I learned a lot from your recent show on repairing old quilts.

Remember that show?

Yeah.

Episode 50.

4510.

My suggestion for replacing with a large patch would be to make a patchwork patch using compatible colors, and possibly a similar block.

I think it would be less obvious than a single fabric and maybe add some extra charm.

That's a fun idea.

I like that we always learn something here at the tips table, and if you have a tip to send in, please send it in.

We love it when you send it with a prop, and you can send it to the address on your screen.

Thanks for watching.

See you next time!

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