I love a good barn quilt.

So New England Afternoon by Heather Davis was on the top of my sewing wish list.

Sara reworks the design in a different color story, but the techniques, including double flippy corners, are the same.

We'll even show you how to customize the barn block with string piece scraps.

Join us for 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.

You're watching the 4700 series of Love of Quilting.

I'm Angela Huffman and I'm Sara Gallegos, and Sara has a really pretty wall hanging that has a lot of fall colors and a lovely barn in the middle of it.

So good fun it is.

I love barn quilts, as you know.

Just one of my favorite things to see.

So this quilt New England Afternoon Design by Heather Davis.

Really, really pretty because we get to play with some really fun, simple blocks to create a couple of borders.

And the way that the house is constructed is really, really dynamic too.

So I'm excited about this one.

I decided to take mine a little different with the color palette.

Heather's is kind of fall inspired, and I did, sort of a Christmas group.

It's a Christmas group, but it could could be, you know, a little flexible in Christmas.

So we're gonna have a little bit of fun with that.

And the very first thing I want to point out is with this quilt, we're making several different units, right?

So we've got a flying geese unit, and we've got the friendship star and the pieces and parts of the house.

So I really was wanting to find a way to keep track of what fabrics were supposed to go, where.

And many of those units you need for in others you need six.

And I was finding myself getting a little bit lost in my quilt as I was laying it out, so I took just some scraps.

I had leftover 2.5in squares, and on the back of each one I labeled the two units that they landed in like figure is one of the units, and we needed five of that.

And another was unit Y and we needed six.

So I really found it helpful just to kind of keep those like laid out right on my cutting table.

And then as I was following the pattern for my layout, I could look over and say, okay, that's my Z4, let me grab that piece.

So just yeah, just a little bit of help.

You could of course, put a little piece and tape it on your fabric, but I wanted something a little bit bigger.

And also because if you like wrote Green Leaf, like which one I don't know.

Yeah, yeah.

So just with the pen, just write on your scraps.

So the very first thing that we're going to work on is, half square triangles, eight at a time to create that friendship star block.

And this is a unit that we've shown quite a bit this season, I think.

Right.

Half square triangles, eight at a time.

So what we've got here is, two of our fabrics right sides together, diagonal.

So on each side of the line.

And we would then cut that apart.

Now if you happen to get a little curvy.

Yeah.

You like run on to the, the edge of the, the road.

You can come back through and just stitch right back over it again.

Right.

So like don't even worry about that because it's in your seam allowance for cutting them apart.

So if you find that it's not consistently perfect okay.

Just do it again.

Yeah.

Just make it right.

So here I've got a set that we've already cut out.

Isn't that fun.

And out of each of those we are going to get two of our friendship stars.

But we do need a couple of squares also.

So just to kind of lay out real quick and again, oh gosh, this was one where I made one and I kept it next to me all the time because it is very easy to flip over one of these half square triangles and you have a totally different block.

And I did find myself doing some, sewing.

Yeah, which is no fun.

And having it laid out to you, you just don't have to think so darn hard.

You just look at the pattern.

Exactly.

And then we've got our white squares in the corners and what do you think?

Should we so.

Or should we.

Yeah.

So move along.

Let's see here.

So just like that.

Yeah.

So we're just kind of flipping it over and stitching in rows.

Okay.

I like the friendship star block is my cute.

It is cute.

It's kind of pinwheely without being pinwheel.

And you do you like the pinwheel block?

Quite a bit I do.

Yep.

There you go.

Sorry, I pulled the string and almost twisted it.

Where did that?

That is where you get mixed up.

Where you get mixed up?

Yeah.

Watch.

Watch as you're grabbing them because they're wiggly.

And I've mentioned before how nice it is if you have a little mini mat or something that you can take with you, right to the sewing machine to keep everything, I stacked a bunch of my blocks on top of each other and just committed to doing just the right side, and then I stacked them back up after I pressed and added the centers.

And, you know, it just kind of helped me to to stay organized.

Yeah.

And even a tray, like a baking tray from your kitchen that could also be a place that you lay everything out.

That's a great idea.

Okay.

So then we're just going to press to the unplaced unit.

So we've got a base square not pressing to the half square triangles.

So then we could start adding the next piece.

Okay.

And you've used kind of a creamy neutral here, a solid print.

And what's nice about it is that if you do there's no right right or wrong side.

Correct on this one.

Exactly.

You notice that it was.

So again I tried to go back so hard.

I tried really hard to not stress over which side with which if you go backwards.

I don't think we did.

Okay, cool, I got that.

See, it's so easy to get mixed up.

I think what it was is that we just that the third row in the first row.

Yeah.

So that's where I just laying it out and keeping a picture of the block or having a attached block sewn off really helps a lot.

So the the border that has these friendship stars is friendship star up against friendship star up against friendship star.

So was pressing like, did you have to have a plan for that or did you just go for it?

So that's a good question.

When we can look at one here, you do have some areas where you could slip your seams over.

And probably if I'd taken a little bit more time, I would have alternated the, the fabrics.

But you're also trying to pay attention to which fabric goes where.

So I basically just pieced all of my blocks, pressed them, laid them out, and I kind of flipped seams as I went.

You could certainly repress those, but it was it's a lot to keep track of at one time.

It is a lot to ask for.

And then you're, I'm presuming that because these are kind of scrappy, like the fabrics.

Did you just get a little bit of a lot of things or how did you decide?

Thank you for asking that question.

So this pattern called for several shades of your turquoise, your browns, your greens.

I just bought a fat quarter bundle.

Oh yeah.

And I pulled the ones that I wanted to use for the quilts.

I in this fat quarter bundle you'll see over on the side of the table here.

Those are a lot of the leftovers that I did not use.

So I wanted to have a nice assortment of smaller prints and larger prints.

And I wanted to add the Browning, but I didn't really want to add the dark green, because I felt like that made it purely Christmas, and I wanted it to be a little bit more evergreen, if you will.

So yeah, I skipped a few of them.

And then on one of them, I will tell you, I missed cut my pieces so that that corner on the on the fat quarter.

So if you are using a fat quarter bundle for this, you want to be careful.

Because if it's one of the units that you're going to make, say six of instead of four, you might find that you don't have enough left over.

So there is in my quilts a substitution and like one of the friendship Starbucks.

Well, I don't know what that is.

Yeah, it's the same color tone, so it's just a slightly different print.

I'm not even going to point out which one of those.

There you go.

That's good, that's good.

It's going to live in there.

And yeah, be happy.

So it didn't take an entire fat quarter bundle.

You took a fat quarter bundle and then added a neutral print.

Correct?

Yep.

For the background.

So I bought excess of the neutral.

I bought excess of what's going to be in the borders.

And you'll see that in the pattern where it tells you if you need, you know, a yard and a half of one of one of the prints do that.

Because what's nice about a precut bundle of fabric is that you get, you know, everything coordinates.

Well, you're relying on the designer, the fabric designers.

I write and color coordination.

And it's a lot less pressure to go out.

And is this is this green?

The right green is a spray, right?

Yeah.

It's all going to be right.

It's all gorgeous.

Yeah.

So there's our friendship star and you're going to make a bunch of those.

Now we're going to work on the other border which is a flying geese border.

And we are going to be making those that, you know, let's people call it the no waste method or the four at a time, whatever you like to call it.

We have one larger base square and then we have two of our background squares.

They're just slightly smaller.

I have marked diagonally.

And we're going to stitch on both sides of that diagonal line.

So kind of similar to stitching on both sides of the half square triangle.

But you've got two squares here sitting on top of the larger square.

Yeah.

And I did a whole bunch at once and just chain pieced.

You could certainly pin them.

I like to pay careful attention to make sure that the tips of the squares stay really, really straight and nice.

And I found that, one of my sewing machines.

The table that goes onto it, like the, the slide on table, has markings where the center needle point is.

So I could really just kind of like, drive from that center point.

And it really helped me with these bigger blocks, especially when I hadn't pinned to keep them nice and straight.

So now we're going to cut that apart right on our marked line really is a little sticky.

There we go.

And I'm going to press those out.

So you're going to press that neutral up.

So this the larger square becomes the goose and the neutral squares become your sky, as Angela always calls it.

So we'll get this one.

Two.

So we start with this kind of heart shape like that.

And now we're going to add another of our marked squares into the tip and so on both sides.

Again I just never know what to call one single flying geese universe.

It's a flying goose.

And that sounds a little weird.

It's a lonely goose.

It's a lonely lost.

It's a lost goose.

It's trying to find, the flock, the herd, the flock.

Yeah, probably honking the whole way.

Crying out to a friend, Beautiful.

Okay, let me do the other one, too.

Sure.

All right, you do that and I'll catch you that one.

Yeah.

Perfect.

So now again, we're going to cut on that center marked a line.

And then we end up with two fine guys.

So out of that initial sets of one large square and for smaller you get four flying geese.

So when you cut the one that quarter wrong, did you go through and pull out.

So he just never he just wasn't in the quilt at all.

Oh no.

He's still in there.

He's still in there.

Just not as represented as he would have.

Yeah.

We kind of subbed in a friend to join him okay.

Throughout the quilt.

And it's, and it's, you have like one of each on each of the four sides.

And so I think I ended up making two just to keep it even.

And I just snuck them in on the borders.

Okay.

So now once you've got your flying geese, you are going to sew those together as a unit of two.

And when we do this, I really like to work from this backside because we want to land right on that exit so that our goose have little pointy beaks.

Yeah.

Nice sharp beak there.

That's correct.

Okay.

This one, this is such a foundational unit.

That you if you have just started quilting this flying goose, unit, you will come across over and over again.

All right, I've got my needle.

It's going right through the egg.

So I'm going to have a nice pointy be all done.

Oh, wait, it really did.

Look at that.

Sarah went right through.

We have to really point out when our sewing is perfect on TV, because so much of the time, you know, we're at a funny angle and we're talking, and it's not so well done.

Thank you.

Good job.

Yes.

It's so fun.

Okay, so there is one of our units and you're going to make a whole bunch of those and all the different colors sizes right there in sets of two.

That's correct.

And then fabric.

Yeah.

And then you're going to follow the layout in the diagram for the different numbers.

So yeah.

And then you make all four of your sides.

And I'm presuming that you probably like laid them out just to audition the colors and make sure that you don't have all the reds in one area and all the greens and another sprinkled all the love about.

I will say that I chose these labels after I had made them all, so I kind of just made six of each one.

I had a few extras because some of them called for four or some called for six.

I don't mind having extra blocks are great for, you know, accessories or quilt labels, all kinds of stuff.

And then I kind of auditioned what I liked best based on how they were going to touch each other, essentially because they do kind of touch each other as friends as they float around the quilt.

So yeah, really fun.

So we've got our flying geese unit, we've got our friendship Star unit, and from there we're ready to start building the house.

And yeah, it's so much fun.

So the base of the house is really simple.

Really simple.

Yeah.

We've got one little flippy corner here, but the rest of it is just putting it together.

Following the diagram.

Doors and windows.

Yeah.

And actually do we have it.

Yeah.

So I think that's the porch.

So that's the way that it goes.

Something that I thought was really interesting in the construction of this barn or house, whatever you want to call it is how the roofs came together.

So I really wanted to show how, because I thought it was paper pieced when I first saw it.

And it's not this is a technique just built for you, and I love it because it's a double flip with my hands.

So.

So those are our house units and we've got mirrored units.

So we want to make sure that we're creating left and right.

And it starts.

We're going to make another right here with our kind of roof color and our and our house color here.

And you're going to just stitch diagonally down that line and make sure you stitch on the right side or, that you're stitching in the right direction rather.

Oh, that this is laying here on top.

Yeah, yeah.

There we go.

The back.

It's the right.

Right.

If I were using your words, we're not doing New York to California.

We're doing a Alaska to Florida.

And I get it right.

Yeah.

That works.

That works.

Normally I go Washington to Florida.

Oh, okay.

Seems like a really far drive.

That is a very far drive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it really spans the whole top of the country.

Yeah.

Yes, yes.

Washington is the way it is on my bucket list.

So I want to go to Alaska too.

I can't believe you haven't been yet.

I feel like everywhere that I've there are very few places that I want to go that I haven't been in.

You've been to all of them, I guess the last.

So I just want to go with.

The whales are wherever the whales are.

That's going to be okay.

So we've got our first one on and now we're going to add a second.

And so that square is slightly smaller than the first one.

And that'll give us that.

It almost looks like piping almost like a faux piping as well.

If I could just give you one little tip before you start.

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

We're just going to cut really quick because this is something that I found with this particular foot, this foot wider on one side than on the other.

And I found that on the wide edge, it was really bumping into my seam allowance and it was giving me a hard time staying straight.

So I actually found it easier to stitch with a skinny side of the foot, up against that seam allowance.

So if you find that it's kind of fighting you and not staying straight because you're on a really uneven surface there, just flip it around and go the other direction.

Yeah, perfect.

And don't use hot pink thread and probably don't use that pink thread.

Yeah, we do that.

So you can see.

Well I'm there with the canvas right.

That's right.

And what's your favorite color of using thread?

I normally use like a battleship gray.

I don't normally use cream or white for sure.

I'm kind of like a gray brown taupe and I use it for everything.

Yeah, okay.

Or if I run out, it's whatever I have.

Yeah.

So there we have the two sides of our roof block.

I, I really thought that was clever.

And then we've also got another fun little like unit in there too, which is just.

And so a basic just so I understand.

So this is the that's oh there you go.

Right.

Yep.

Okay.

There's the point of the roof.

And then these come down like that.

Good job into it okay.

There's a big we're missing something.

We're missing something.

Yes.

So what they placed there is a little flag.

So it isn't that fun.

So sweet.

So we've got instructions on how to pieces flag.

Super easy.

Just straight lines right.

Yeah.

But you know I love my barn quilts.

Yeah.

And there are a lot of really fun things that we could do here instead.

So I thought about like maybe piecing a block to put into that section, but it finishes out it kind of an odd size.

I want to say it's six and a half by seven and a half.

So you would either need a rectangular shaped block or maybe you're making just the center part.

I think it's still rectangular shaped with the two sashing, so it's kind of a weird measurement.

You could of course make this with with borders and have it fit exactly perfect.

But I had all of these extra strips from cutting those, fat quarters apart to cut my pieces out.

And I thought we could have some fun with string piecing here.

So.

Yeah.

So we're going to create a little alternate block.

Actually, we can just leave this here.

Okay.

The way.

So what I've got here is I took a larger than what I need scrap of a foundation fabric.

It's just a scrap of my cream.

It even had a little slit in it, from like an overcut, but does not matter because I'm covering it with more fabric.

So just a scrap of whatever you want to make as your base.

Okay, so I've got that here.

And again, I oversize it a bit because that will give us space to to trim down.

Right.

Then I used see this right here.

Oh it's what you cut off.

Yeah.

One of the scraps from trimming that as my starting point for string piecing and string piecing is just like you just throw a strip on.

Don't worry about it.

Don't stress over the size of it.

Some of mine are skinnier or thinner than others, and you just put what you like next to it.

And I don't like that one as well.

So let's let's do brown next to that.

Yeah I like that.

So we want to place our strip on and we just want to make sure that when we fold it back it's going to reach both edges.

Because if you're kind of over here, you might find that you're going to miss the spot.

Right.

So we just want to make sure that we've got access.

And this is one of those, you know, just just relax and sew it on.

Don't stress over, you know, embrace it and embrace the wonkiness.

Yeah.

Because that's part of the charm.

So like this brown strip that you gave me is a little bit skinnier on one end than it is on the other.

And that is all good.

I think that looks nice.

And that way, the foundational piece that you were sewing upon will hold everything kind of intact so that there are bias edges.

It just won't matter.

There you go.

Okay, so when I was stitching this at home, instead of getting up and going back and forth to the iron, I used our pen.

That just applies that little bit of fabric softener to the edge, and I just finger pressed it back down and stitch the next one on.

Yeah, yeah.

Because we're going to go back through and press it after we've sold them all on, so I just didn't, keep getting up and, and moving over.

So you don't have that surprises me that you don't have a pressing station right next to your machine in your sewing room.

Well, here goes, Sara taking over the entire house.

Oh, it depends on which part of my house I'm sewing in.

And I do have the subterranean sewing layer.

My basement sewing layer.

That's what I call it.

My subterranean there.

It's, you know, it's egress windows.

So I have some sunlight, but it's damp and cold like a basement, and it's just not where my people are.

So if I'm down there, I've got everything set up and I do have a pressing station nearby, but most times you're going to find me in my living room.

Yeah.

So my family is very patient with the fact that I take over the whole house.

But if you also run in an iron and the pressing station and the cutting table and your sewing machine, they might get a little cranky.

I'm not going to lie, there is a full size ironing board right in front of the fireplace in my living room.

I put it away when company comes.

Or they'll add the cuttings on the dining room table.

You know, it's just.

But it is what it is.

Fabric that everybody has has known that it's great.

And if anybody complains, I just throw a quilt at them.

Here have this.

I really like how you're kind of combining little skinny strips with thicker strips, like you're just going for it and we're not cutting off the outside edge just to make sure that we oh, I should put this through this way.

Yeah, that's the quarter inch side.

And honestly it's string piecing.

So if you put it through the backwards way it doesn't matter.

Your seam allowances don't matter here at all.

That's awesome.

And you may find that your if you have a foot, you know, measure this one to the right of the needle.

It is a quarter inch to the left.

It is a half inch.

Yeah.

So you just need to know your feet.

It's pretty neat.

Get to know them.

Get a ruler out.

Yeah.

All right, so we would just continue on and on and on and on.

And at the very end, I used another little skinny triangle just to complete the edge.

And we could absolutely cut this into a square right now, but we really don't have to.

So what I thought would work.

Sorry.

Right.

What I thought would be fun is I'm going to let you kind of pick here.

I've got another base fabric.

Yeah.

And this is going to become our block.

And I cut a little couple of appliqué shapes out and you can decide.

Would you like to have a star?

Would you like to have a little Christmas tree?

Let's see the star.

Sorry.

Okay, so I've got a double sided paperback fusible web here, and I drew the star on one side, cut it out with scissors.

And now we're going to peel off the first part of the paper and lay that star onto our fabric.

And look, I'm going over here because I've still got some usable space.

Yeah.

We could do to having a tree and a star out of it.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I did think about would there be a way to make it a swappable block?

Oh, I thought about that too.

If you can have it out with the seasons.

Yes, I think that'd be really neat.

I think so too.

Oh, that's the next idea.

Look.

Tape or buttons?

Buttons inside.

Cool.

And then, yeah, we have buttons and little, little buttonholes.

Yeah.

That was super cute.

Cute.

Okay, so I fuzed it on.

Just follow the instructions.

It's not real hard.

And then we're going to cut out our little star.

And I'm actually going to cut this real quick.

And then we'll come back and place it.

All right.

So I've cut out the star.

And now I'm going to peel off that second piece of paper.

Here we go.

And make sure you don't peel the sticky with it.

Oh beautiful.

Now I'm going to take my background square and just center it wherever you want.

He's a wonky star that way.

Oh yeah.

That's good.

Now that I'm looking at it, I wish I would have made it a little bit more angular.

And you have enough of that strip set that you could, I could, I could redo it.

And then once you've got it fuzed in place and I like to with a fusible like this, I'll fuze from both sides to really make sure that the heat of the iron is getting all the way through the fabric to the glue, and you might want to use some some parchment paper or something that will help prevent that fusible from going on the sole of your iron.

Correct.

Because that's not fun.

And then we've got our little star, and you're just going to use your favorite applique stitch to stitch this down.

It could be a little zigzag a little a little straight stitch your favorite blanket stitch whichever you like.

I would of course have to put in a fun thread.

I have to put the bottom of the barn on, build the build the barn.

So it's a barn raising.

So cute.

Not fun.

Yeah, I would like to change that out with the seasons.

That would be super fun.

Little buttons in the four little corners and you could put different seasonal stuff in each one.

That's right.

Yeah.

Then once you've got that whole thing together, we are going to start with our flying geese.

And I stitched all mine together and then I labeled, yeah, good idea.

Top left.

And then once you've got all of those on we've got a sashing and our stars go next.

So cute.

Isn't that what a great quilt.

Yeah.

And a way to personalize it as well.

Grab a pencil tips and other useful information.

Coming up next.

This is from Bridget Louie from San Francisco, California.

She said I made a coaster out of leftover hexagons and realized that pie divisions would be a good way to track which machine needle I have in my machine.

By sticking the needles in the coaster, I can keep them from rolling around and disappearing from my workspace, and she uses a hideaway pen to label each pie so she can change the labels as needed.

She also likes to store her sewing machine with the presser foot down, and she pops this under the foot to provide a cushion between the presser foot and the needle plate.

That is awesome.

And also, your top stitching is perfect.

Well done.

Yeah, it was very games.

Okay, this is kind of a fun one.

Carol Parker's of Antioch, California.

So since I have limited cupboard space in my kitchen, I store my frying pans on top of on top of one another.

To avoid scratching the nonstick surface.

She's created little pan liners with her fabric scraps, and That is pretty.

This says this is from Sammie Garrett from Nuala, Oklahoma.

She says, hi girls.

I've been quilting for 45 years, inheriting the hobby from my grandmother and mother, who are both quilters.

If I don't have a lint roller on hand, I use a piece of shelf liner to remove stray threads from the ironing board or my clothes.

I love the show.

Happy sewing!

I could probably use that right now.

I know with your new puppy.

That's good.

Yeah you're right.

Thanks so much for sending your tips and if you have one to share, you can send it to the address on screen.

And of course, we love it when you send us a little visual too.

We'll see you next time.

Additional quilting ideas are available in the pages of Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting magazine.

In addition to the magazine, you will receive all 13 shows from this series in digital video format.

The cost is $49.95.

Explore loveofquilting.com/LOQtv Find out more about this episode.

Discover ways to watch the show, explore patterns, find supply lists, and browse earlier seasons.

Explore loveofquilting.com/LOQtv and connect with us on Facebook and Instagram.

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.