Winter cheer is a seasonal pepperminty quilt, but Angela gives it a juicy summer twist.

Construct these two fun quilt blocks with us for a delightful throw and maybe a matching pillow.

We've got all the sewing tips and tricks for you and guarantee you a great time.

On this 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.

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[Upbeat music] Hi there, and welcome to the 48th season of Love of Quilting.

I'm Sara Gallegos.

- And I'm Angela Huffman.

- And Angela.

You have a very sweet, festive pillow here.

Isn't it great.

So this was made by Kari Matthews, and she made Winter Cheer.

So it's the quilt behind us on the wall.

And then also made a pillow, using one of the blocks from the quilt.

What a great thing to do with a sample like tester block or extra pieces.

Yeah, yeah.

- Do you cut everything to exactly the amount you need?

- And then You have the matching pillow - Yeah.

- to sit on the quilt.

Yeah.

Perfect.

Right?

- Perfect.

Right.

- Yeah.

All right.

So let's look at how to make there's two different blocks in the quilt itself.

And so the first one that we're going to make is kind of a on her quilt.

It's a candy cane stripe kind of block.

- Right.

And I made mine a little bit more.

I don't know it.

To me, it kind of looks like like that spring to summer.

Okay.

You know, right where that those, those two seasons, meet.

So the first thing that we're going to do is we are going to make, a snowball, a square in a square that is in the middle of that, block.

And so I've got a square here of my focal print and then some fun green, and I've already marked the diagonals.

And so I'm going to set two of these on here and if you would sew right on the diagonal.

- Okay.

And then we'll do the other two corners.

Sure.

Yeah.

This is a pretty palette.

So when you found these fabrics did you start with one and kind of base the whole thing off of that focal print?

I did, I started with the focal print, and I was looking for something that, had a lot of neutral in it that I could pull out, because the second block that we're going to do is kind of kind of float on the neutral.

So I wanted something that had a lot of different colors in it that I could pull from, but would give me a strong, neutral background as well.

It's very soft and pretty.

And I will say, on this, on this piece here that we're doing, it's a pretty big green square that we're putting here in the corners.

Okay.

Can you sew a half of an inch away from that line?

Because I just want to show you, - I sure can.

if you're ever doing flippy corners where you're sewing on the diagonal and, it kind of hurts your heart to take that fabric that you're going to cut away and toss it.

Here's a way that you can make little tiny, daughter blocks out of all of those flippy corners.

Yeah.

I had one episode where we had so many of these little bitty guys leftover, and I I didn't sew them all and wished that I had.

Yeah.

- There you go.

So because we've got those two lines of stitching, if I sew right between them, so a quarter of an inch away.

From the first line of stitching there I am going to then create.

I have a little - Or cutting between the two lines.

Cutting.

Oh, what did I say?

Sewing.

- Sewing.

Oh yeah, I was cutting.

I wasn't sewing, but you guys knew that.

So look at that little cute cutie patootie little half square triangle.

And that would be cute around.

Oh, like a label on the back.

- Right.

Or save them all and you are on your way to making a really great scrap quilt.

- Very cute.

that kind of reminds you of other quilts that you may have made in the past.

That's always nice.

- Yeah.

All right.

And then we're just going to press those out and we have two other corners here to put on.

Okay.

And you don't have to do the daughter blocks this time unless you just want to.

Let's see here.

And I will say that this fabric on the selvage, a lot of times you'll see the different colors that are made up in the fabric itself.

So sometimes it can feel a little intimidating to pull colors out of a fabric to go along with, you know, the go alongs - Right.

- with the fabric.

The coordinates.

The selvage can give you some really good hints of what to choose.

- It's kind of like having paint chips.

You have little like paint chips along the bottom of the fabric to help you know what would be great coordinates.

Great friends.

And don't you love the fabrics where it's not just like a dot of color.

It's I don't know, it's a unicorn.

- Right.

A bird.

It's a heart.

- A bunny.

It's, Yeah, those are really cute.

And more and more, the salvages have had interesting phrases and little quotes on them.

So it's become more and more fun to collect those.

You know, I feel it's kind of like the designer of the fabric is giving you a little wink.

- Right.

You know, when you buy the fabric.

Yeah.

- Here's one for the superfans.

- Right.

And I will say if that's challenging for you picking out coordinating colors with your fabric, go to your local fabric store and ask for help - Yeah.

because they are delighted to help you pull colors.

Cannot wait to help people.

You know, it's like when you work at a quilt shop and you just get to pet fabric all day.

- All day.

- And pick out colorful combinations that other people buy.

So much fun.

It's fun too to open the boxes as they arrive.

- Right.

It's like Santa's arriving, you know.

- Christmas.

Everyday at the store.

And to see everything fall into place Okay.

So we've got a few little daughter blocks here to have some fun with.

I am going to be just because of the build up here of the seams.

I'm going to go ahead and paint that seam.

And this is just it has water and a little bit of, softener, a fabric softener in it.

And that will help this lay nice and flat.

And that's going to help my accuracy.

And don't you love this, this green how it just pops.

It's gorgeous.

- Just pops out.

So that's going to be - Yeah.

- in the center.

Now let's talk about of course, these four corners are plain squares.

That's easy peasy.

But let's talk about this block right here.

And this block is a half square triangle with two flippy corners.

- Okay.

So I have my neutral and I have my, kind of orange stripy print.

And if you would sew a quarter inch away from the diagonal, on each side of that diagonal, and that will give us, our half square triangle.

This orange feels a little homespun.

Yeah.

It does.

It has - It's got a nice weave.

- It has some tonals in it that were really fun to pull out.

And that coral color that's in the focal print, it's kind of an odd duck.

It's not a color I see very often.

And - It's actually one of my favorite colors.

So pretty.

- What's that?

- It's one of my very favorite.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

You know, that rusty color is the color that follows me home?

Rusty.

- A rust color.

Yeah.

It always surprises me.

But it follows me home all the time.

That's fun.

For me it's the coraly peaches.

Okay, here you are.

And so you're going to need four of these.

We're doing the half square triangles two at a time.

And then you go ahead and cut on that line.

You could also do the half square triangles eight at a time.

You would have some kind of left over from this project.

So however you would like to do it.

So I'm going to press these, towards the dark.

And anytime I want to press it towards a fabric, I'm going to lay that fabric up on my pressing mat.

And that will help me remember as well as help the seam go to the side that I want it to go on.

And then a lot of times when I'm pressing multiples, I'll just lay the next one down just underneath it.

And again, I'm kind of pressing that first one here a second time, and then I'm also pressing it one more time.

So just kind of laying them right on top, on top, on top will help to get all this seems to lay nice and flat.

Okay.

So we're going to trim this guy down to four and a half.

And there's a couple of ways to do that.

I did have a 4.5in ruler here.

So if you wanted to kind of use this as a template, that's a super easy thing to do if you have a ruler this specific size.

- Sure.

- So I'm going to lay that diagonal line down right on that seam.

And then I'm going to go ahead and trim up two sides.

And then I'm going to just rotate that 90 degrees and do it one more time.

So I've turned this 4.5in ruler into a giant template basically.

So did you oversize the blocks when you cut or do they need to be trimmed per the instructions?

I oversize them slightly.

Yeah, that that always makes my world just a little happy.

Sure.

- So I oversize them slightly.

Okay, so the other one I wanted to show you so you could use a regular ruler.

There's also rulers out there that will help you, do multiple sizes.

So this one, we're going to sew it down.

We're going to cut it down to that 4.5in size.

So I've got my, diagonal seam here on this diagonal line.

And I can see I have excess fabric outside the 4.5in line and outside the excess of the ruler.

And this one, it just has fewer lines on it.

So I don't get distracted.

And now all I'm doing is I'm just lining up the dashed lines on the outside, the diagonal line on the seam.

And it has fewer lines because it's specifically meant for trimming blocks to various different sizes.

So if you're ever needing a good gift idea for somebody to purchase, you know, like a new ruler, that you need something that's specifically for trimming things up for precision is a really nice idea.

You can't have too many rulers.

Nope.

- You just can't.

Okay, I'm going to rotate this around and we have that, rich red that we're going to put and I've already marked the diagonal and we're going to put that up here in this corner and in this corner down here.

We are going to use this, very graphic print that I'll go down to this corner.

And so we're going to do chain piecing.

So when you're wanting to do multiple things at once, if you kind of line everything up and probably I'll take this one away Sara we'll, we'll put them through the assembly line here with the, the rusty reds and then we'll put that graphic print on.

Okay.

So chain piecing is going to just speed up your process.

You're doing the same thing over and over and over again.

So I just stop and let that needle drop foot comes up.

And then I can position the second piece right behind it.

One thing I would.

Say is that the metal that your foot is made out of, I would just caution you about how often you have those feed dogs, kind of, chew on the bottom of that foot, occasionally inspect the bottom of your foot if you've been running your machine.

Without fabric between the bottom of the foot and your, feed dogs, you might find that you've got little nicks in the bottom of that foot, so just just inspect them now and again.

I think that happens more on the plastic feet than on metal feet, too.

Yeah.

- If you've got like a plastic quarter inch foot.

Those clear feet.

- Yeah.

Not quite as durable as the solid metal for sure.

If you've been sewing for a while just check them out.

All right.

So I'm going to again kind of lay that down on top and press it one last time.

And now we're going to do that graphic print.

And I've already got a marked for you Sara.

There's one and there's the other.

So the block itself looks a little more complex.

It's just a half square triangle and flippy corners.

So it's really it's the magic of flippy corners.

- Right.

They add so much pizzazz and sparkle to a super simple block.

And of course, you are the queen of the flippy corner.

Do you like using the clear feet or do you grab a metal foot most of the time?

Oh, depends on what I'm doing and which machine I'm working with.

If I really want to see exactly where my needle is landing in my fabric, I'll.

I'll lean toward a clear.

But I do like the contact that a metal foot makes.

The contact that it makes.

Yeah.

- More so than the plastic?

- Correct.

Yeah.

I like the little.

Generally they're going to have like little red kind of guidelines on the - Yeah.

On the plastic ones for Appliqué and decorative stitching.

Definitely.

That's what I use.

Lean toward those clear with the markings.

All right.

So there's that one.

There's that one.

I got to see the factory of a sewing machine and how they actually like were hand polishing the metal feet.

It's like amazing Really?

- how really fine tuned those specifications Yeah.

- That's awesome.

Okay.

So we're going to lay this down and I believe I have this correct.

Hold on.

- So these are facing and these aren't.

So yeah maybe one needs to spin.

No hold on.

All right help me Sara I've got that one.

This one goes this way and that one goes that way.

Okay, I think I have it.

How about that?

Okay, we'll do that.

Okay.

So, so let's go ahead and put these together now that you've got it, let's figure it out back.

Just so I just stack these up, I kind of stack them like that.

And then I take them to the machine.

So we're - Okay.

- doing that right side.

So I would carry them to the machine carefully.

Or if you've got a way to set yourself up where you are on like a chair that rotates and you can have pressing over here and, and sewing over here, that is super helpful.

A lot of times what I'll do too, is just to stick one little clip on that edge, and I know that's the edge I need to sew, especially if I'm afraid I might might rotate things between the sewing machine and the presser foot station Or this happens.

Look it's getting drug.

- Yep.

and then you don't know which side.

Yeah.

And I will say that if I sew the same thing wrong three times in a row, I just go to bed.

That's a good rule of thumb.

- I just go, okay.

I guess I'm done.

I'm done for the day.

This was enough.

I might just, like, take my dog for a walk.

Yes.

Sometimes we just need a change of scenery.

There we go.

Yeah, it's like a reset or something.

And I wear a, Sometimes if I'm doing something super complicated.

I also have, like, a palate cleanser where I will do, like a strip, a foundation, kind of strip quilt and that kind of gets my brain relaxed enough to go back to what I was doing.

- Yeah you call it a palate cleanser, and I call it a brain break.

Literally, just a brain break.

- Yeah.

Be a little bogged down.

And oftentimes after love of quilting, I go home.

I make something as simple as possible just to kind of like, reset things.

I wanted to point out, Sara, what a good job you did here.

Take a look at how her seam when it went through.

And here was that.

Here was that square in a square that we did earlier.

And when she put her seam through, look how it went right through that intersection.

So it's going to have a very nice crisp point that all of those seams.

That is the perfect place.

To kind of help it lay flat because there's just so much there going on.

And you have to decide which way you want that seam to go.

So I'm going to actually press it towards that center.

Yeah.

If you're losing the tips of points, it's nice just to sew with that kind of intersection face up so you can watch your needle drop down into the right spot, because that's what's going to give you that precision.

Okay.

So there's that one.

And I'm, I'm putting these I'm pressing these so that they are going to nest for us.

So we put our twosies together.

Now we're going to add the threesie just flip those over to bring us down towards you Sara.

I'm going to do this.

- All right.

That way I'm not spinning them around.

I can just grab that edge.

I need.

I like your little mat.

Yeah.

It's helpful to carry things around.

Sometimes even pie plates.

You know, paper plates, rather - Right.

- will do the same thing.

Yeah.

- Some way to keep yourself organized.

A little mini cutting mat.

I like those for that, too.

Do you have yourself set up at home where you kind of can rotate on your chair?

I do not, because I like to force myself to get up and walk around and kind of stretch my back out.

And so - Yeah.

- I do sort of have things all over the place, cuttings away from pressing, away from sewing, because I just need to move.

I get real stiff.

- I have a cat bed like right there.

So that my cat can inspect everything that's happening.

Oh, there you go.

So you got a little cat fur on your - Yes.

- project.

That's not a quilt with a little cat fur on it.

My dog lays next to me staring at me, going, when are you going to be done?

When are we going to be done?

Are we done?

- Are we done with this.

- Can we go outside?

Yeah.

- Could always have a buddy, though.

There's always a little friend next to me.

- Yeah.

Okay.

There you are.

- All right.

And so I'm going to press this one towards that corner, that rusty corner.

And then, want to lay that on there.

- Sure.

And then for this one, this was the one that had a lot of different, seams going on.

So I'm going to go ahead just because it has so many seams.

I'm going to go ahead and use the pen for that one.

And I know it seems like an extra step, but with all the bulk.

It's going to make a difference.

Yeah.

- It makes a difference, doesn't it?

And probably if I had thought about this a little bit deeper, I would have made the pressing for this block.

I would have made the pressing go, out from the center.

I would have made it go out from the center and in.

But I wasn't thinking that deeply.

And it's always like the second time you do it, you go, oh, I just learned something about how to put this block together.

- Well that's why we do this.

Because then we can tell you.

- Useful.

What to do right?

Okay.

So we've got the three columns, and these now should nest together.

I'm gonna grab that one and a quarter inch seam there.

So these will be 12.5in blocks.

And I really like the quilt that.

So she's got them set on point and she has the setting triangles in them.

And that gives you a place to play with the quilting.

She did an all over edge to edge with candy canes and - It's very sweet.

- Christmas trees and swirly swirls.

Very festive.

So I'll have to figure out how I'm going to stitch this one, since it's like spring to summer.

Maybe it's like a drink with an umbrella.

I don't know.

Kind of reminds me, like pina colada colors.

The thing that popped into my mind is I've seen some really cute little like lollipop type or popsicle type motifs.

Would be cute.

For something like this, Oh popsicle motifs.

That would be cute.

- But also a pitcher of drinks.

- Yeah, that would be cute.

Could be fun.

Popsicle motifs that would be.

- Wouldn't that be cute?

Yeah.

- I don't know what I saw that on?

But that's exactly where my brain - Yep.

- kind of went.

All right.

And so I'm just going to press that and we'll open it up.

It is one of the questions I get all the time is, is how what how do I decide what to quilt on my quilt?

As far as like an all over edge to edge design, - Yeah.

how do I decide what pantograph to put on my quilt?

Whether you're having it quilted, by someone else or you are quilting it.

And so generally what I do is I look at the motifs in the fabric and kind of use that as a guide.

So it's super easy on a Christmas quilt.

You've got Christmas theme Coming at you.- Sure.

So a Christmas pantograph, a Christmas all over edge to edge is going to make a whole bunch of sense.

But otherwise I would look at maybe the shapes of the leaves or maybe, if they're roses versus - Sure.

- carnations versus, ivy, like, all of the fabric should give you a little bit of a hint or a clue as to what an all over edge to edge design might be best.

My friend Lance, who's been quilting a lot of my quilts, I always giggle because I swear he gets a new motif for every quilt that he does, and I realized it's just as bad as rulers and fabric.

You quilters collect edge to edge motifs like candy.

I have these friends.

So it's a husband and wife team and she pieces and he quilts her quilts on They have a computerized machine, and he designs every, pantograph to go right along with whatever fabric she's picked out.

- Thats fun.

- Like, everything is an original.

So he he's, like a former, I don't know, aerospace engineer or something.

Super smart dude.

And, he enjoys, making original designs for her quilts.

That's really neat.

- So pretty.

- Beautiful.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

I like it.

- Okay, so the next one that we're going to do is the wreath design.

And it is going to be, there's a pinwheel in the center.

And so I've got the, the focal print along with that rusty color.

I've already marked corner to corner, if you would.

sew on each side, - Sure.

- and we're going to be making, little, flying geese as well.

So I've marked all of these squares on the diagonal already, and I wanted to show you a quick way to mark diagonals if you have lots of these, because of course, all of these half square triangles we've been doing, - Right.

we've had a mark on the diagonal and all of these flying geese, we're going to make are all having to be marked on the diagonal.

So I've got my squares here that I'm going to be marking on the diagonal, and I've got my mat and I am going to use my mat to help me, align these fabrics so that I can mark them all at once.

So I'm going to take the point and line up the point on the line, and I'm going to take and line up the next one and the next one.

And hopefully I've given myself enough room here for the next one.

It looks like I need to move them up.

And then I'm going to just take a longer ruler.

And I'm probably going to have to get the long, long ones Sara.

Big long ruler for that.

- Long, long one.

And then I'm just going to lay it down on my mat.

And if I have any of that, I need to scooch.

I can scooch.

So I have them all now here.

And then I'm just going to use a pencil to mark all those diagonals.

This is where you definitely want your grippy on your ruler so it doesn't shift.

- Yeah.

- Nice work.

It just goes a whole lot faster.

- Yeah.

All right.

So we've got these half square triangles.

So I'm going to press this open towards the the rust color.

And we're going to want to trim these down.

These are going to go down to a 3.5in size.

So there's one.

And so this is again we use that 4.5in for the other one.

If we had a 3.5in we could use that to trim these down.

Did you find a ruler you don't have.

I think I think it's probably under there.

I just didn't dig far enough, to grab it, so.

All right, so let's do these at three and a half.

You know what's cool about, flying geese and half square triangles is you could take a half square triangle or goose and make it any size at all.

Right.

So if you have a bunch of half square triangles that are too big and you need them to be slightly smaller, you can make them whatever you need them to be.

Just trim them down.

- Yeah.

All right.

So.

You will be making these into a pinwheel.

And we're going to be sewing a goose.

All right Sara.

So I've got our pinwheel up here.

There you go.

And here.

I have to reach across the table for it.

Thank you.

All right.

Those two go together.

All right.

And so while you're doing that, I am going to, just lay these.

Squares that we've marked the diagonals on onto these two corners.

And you're going to, Stitch on either side.

sew those on each side of the diagonal.

I'm just going to zip around the corner okay.

So we've made this no waste flying geese unit a few times.

So we're going to finish this up real quick and then show you the final block.

So here we go.

Sara we've got our pinwheel center.

We would put these flying geese on the side of that.

We're going to put those, flying geese with the setting half square triangles on.

You've got this border, this border, one outside blue big border to go around and you've got your block all finished.

- Very pretty.

Yeah.

- Very nice.

Look, I also made our cute little daughter block.

Oh.

So cute.

Look at that little pinwheel.

That's adorable.

So, yeah, that'll be the label.

That's right.

- Very nice.

Find your own color palette to make a festive wreath and give this project a go.

Grab a pencil, tips and other useful information.

Coming up next.

Okay, so here we've got Latricia, Girwa from Houston, Texas.

And she says I'm a frugal retiree that tries to repurpose or recycle everything I can to keep it out of the trash pile.

If renewed my interest in quilting and have been practicing free motion and walking foot quilting and doing so, I produce a lot of test samples as I get to know the thread color combination.

I've been cutting these down and using them as cushions between my China or glass, or ceramic and crystal serving pieces.

Very nice.

- That's a great idea - Very nice.

This one is from Carol Barnes from Newark, Ohio.

She said a duster cloth or scrap of batting is handy for transporting patches to and from retreats.

The pieces stay in position and can be stacked in a tub or a box.

And I always learn something new from your episode.

You beautiful ladies encourage us and fill us with confidence and fun.

Oh goodness.

Thank you Carol.

And your compliments and ideas keep us going too.

So thanks so much for sharing.

Please share your good ideas.

And quilting tips.

Send them to the address on your screen.

We'll see you next time.

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