My Scrappy Cross Roads Block Tutorial!!!

I've had several requests to show my

 Scrappy Cross Roads Block

 Instagram Tutorial 

(Beelori1)

here on my blog as well…

so here we go!

This is a traditional block that I have sewn

 many many times 

before and showed to you here…

so I guess it's time I did 

a tutorial on it here too!

I love it because it's the 

perfect scrap buster block for

 my scrappy stash:)

It uses up 2 1/2" scrappy stash squares 

and a solid you may have leftover from a previous project:)

Each block finishes at 16" square.

It looks complicated to sew but when you use my easy corner

triangle method…

it becomes easy to stitch it up quickly and accurately.

This is the background fabric for my quilt.

I chose to use my favorite new solid at the moment…

"Sweet Mint" 

It's a Riley Blake solid:)

YaY!!!

For one of my Scrappy Cross Roads block

 you will need to cut 8- 4 1/2" squares

You can easily get 8 from

 one 4 1/2" x Width of Fabric strip…

so this means 1/8th yard of fabric = 1 block…

1 yard of fabric = 8 blocks and so forth:)

This is my 2 1/2" scrappy stash basket

 that I am cutting my squares from.

I have showed to you my method of creating

 and more importantly USING my scrappy stash several times.

But if you are new here or want to see it again…

Click here.

For one of my Scrappy Cross Roads blocks…

You will need 48 - 2 1/2" squares

Obviously this is a great project for 

leftover 5" or 10" squares as well 

because they are easily sub-cut into 2 1/2" squares:)

Now that you are all cut…

Lets start sewing!

First choose 16 of your 48 - 2 1/2" squares 

 to sew Easy Corner Triangles onto

 two opposite corners of your solid squares.

Simply lay your 2 1/2" print squares onto

 one corner of your solid square…

line up the edges evenly and

 sew a STRAIGHT LINE from corner to corner.

Do not guess!

Guessing always ends up with a

 crooked line no matter how good you are:)

Either mark a line or use a seam guide like I do.

*EDIT*

 I now have a 

Seams Sew Easy

 seam guide to help you

 when doing this step.

CLICK HERE 

and then 

CLICK HERE  

to see how to use it:)

Chain or clothesline stitch 

to save time and thread:)

Give each square a quick press

 to set the stitches before trimming:)

Trim them up like this…

by cutting an approximate 1/4" seam allowance

past your stitching line.

Press towards the triangles:)

Don't you just LOVE

 Easy Corner Triangles?

Now you still have a 4 1/2" square

 that you started out with…

But you have 2 scrappy triangles on two corners.

YaY!!!

Now randomly pair up the remaining

 32 squares and stitch them together.

Press these seams open:)

Then pair them up again and stitch together

Eight 4-patch blocks.

Press these seams open as well:)

When you have all your little segments sewn together...

Lay them out on your design board

 the way that you want to sew them together.

Take it over to your sewing machine and sew!!!

I have shown you my design boards many times over the years…

Let me just say how important they are to me

during every step of making a quilt.

I use them when I cut my pieces…

layout my block…

 sew it and after pressing it.

I have a tutorial on how I make them and use them

 here on my blog…

(CLICK HERE and HERE)

or

I also have a youtube tutorial as well:)

I like to use these fork pins every now and then

(by CLOVER) when needed

to sew a difficult seam that just won't match up.

The beauty of a fork pin is that you can pin on each

side of the seam so that there is 

no slipping when it goes under the feed dogs.

(I sometimes remove mine just before they go under the needle or I just sew over them because they are thin enough)

Here is the back of my block…

seams pressed open

(Except the easy corner triangle seams)

I have been pressing my seams open for over 20 years

because I love how super flat my block ends up.

For those of you wondering…

no.

I have not ever had any problems with my seams coming open in a quilt.

And here you have a finished

Scrappy Cross Roads Block

YaY!

Wasn't that fun?

Here is what 2 blocks look like together.

This would make a great table runner 

and you could make it as long

 as you wanted by adding more blocks!

I'm making a 4 block quilt 

with mine and I'll show you

when it's finished:)

I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial by me…

and I want you to have fun with it!

*On another related note…

This is my Two by Four block.

It also finishes at 16" making it perfect to mix and match

with my Scrappy Cross Roads block

so that you can use them together in the same quilt

and they look great!

All you need to do is 

substitute the 4 patch segments 

by using a 4 1/2" square instead.

Easy Peasy!

I hope you have fun making my 

Scrappy Crossroads Block 

and my 

Two by Four Block

Like I always say:

Scrappiness is Happiness!

  

xx

Lori

Saltwater Taffy Quilt Tutorial - Scrappy Happy Summer Sew Along!!! ...

Hello:)

I'm back!

Apparently I went on a 

little bloggy break from our 

Scrappy Happy Summer Sew Along

 last week:)…I've been waiting until 

this quilt was quilted 

so that I could show it to you!

Meet my newest scrappy summer creation…

"Salt Water Taffy"

54" x 54"

I named it after saltwater taffy because

it's summer and salt water taffy is famous

 around here for being the favorite parade 

candy that's thrown out to the crowd:)

YaY for parades!

I also think all of the colors and the shape

 of the block looks like salt water taffy…

don't you?

This is one of the projects that I made with my leftover

fabric that was trimmed off the Easy Corner Triangles

on my 24" Summer Skies block:)

If you remember I showed you a super simple way

 to make half square triangles from the trimmings.

I ended up with 72 of them with 2 colors

like the ones pictured above on the left.

I set those aside for later…

 I'll show you the other project that

 I made with them next week:)

For this quilt I used the 144 half square triangles 

that are one half background and one half color.

I decided to take advantage of the fact that

there were sets of 4 or 8 in the exact same fabrics

and come up with a block using 4 matching 

half square triangles.

I sewed all 144 together like this…

and pressed the seams open

so that I could place each block any which way 

as I was playing with them and not have to 

worry about which way I had already pressed:)

I ended up with 36 blocks that measure 

6 1/2" UNFINISHED

I played with this setting first.

I call this block my

 "Salt Water Star"

and I love it!!!

 But since I had just finished my

 Summer Skies quilt with big star blocks…

I saved this for later...

And simply sewed the blocks together

all going the same direction…

and my Saltwater Taffy quilt was born!

I sewed 6 rows of six blocks…or in other words…

a 6x6 setting:)

I laid it out on some fabric on the edge 

 to see if I wanted

 to finish it off with just a binding…

I liked the way it looked

but doing it this way my quilt would only finish at 

36" square and I wanted it a little bigger.

So I added an orange inner border

 and a green outer border!

Cutting for borders…

From background; (1/2 yard total needed)

Cut 2 - 1 1/2" x 36 1/2"

Cut 2 - 1 1/2" x 38 1/2"

Sew these on first then add the orange border; (1/4 yard)

Cut 2 - 1 1/2" x 38 1/2" 

Cut 2 - 1 1/2" x 40 1/2"

Now add more borders of the background;

Cut 2 - 1 1/2" x 40 1/2"

Cut 2 - 1 1/2" x 42 1/2"

Now for the green; (1 3/4 yards lengthwise )

Cut 2 - 6 1/2" x 42 1/2"

Cut 2 - 6 1/2" x 54 1/2"

You will have enough border fabric 

to cut binding strips

but I wanted to use mine for

 another project so I used the same fabric for binding

that I used for the backing:)

Either way…

you will need 226" of prepared binding

which you can get from 1/2 yard of fabric:)

I love how my Salt Water quilt turned out…

it's a great size for the back of a chair…

a lap quilt...

a baby quilt…

a wallhanging…

or a table topper:)

Have fun with your

 half square triangles…

I can't wait to see them on the 

Scrappy Happy Summer

Flickr group!!!

Remember that all info

as well as a link to 

each and every post

from this sew along 

can be found on the home page

of the flickr group!

See you there:)

xx

Lori

My Scrappy Crossroads Block…My Instagram Tutorial and Sew Along!!!...

This is my Scrappy Crossroads block…

it looks complicated but it's not!

Today…

 I had a quilty kind of day on 

Instagram 

doing a tutorial on my block

for a sew along 

especially for Instagram.

YaY!!!

It's the perfect block to use up your

leftover 2 1/2" scrappy squares:)

I used a solid in mint 

for my background 

and I love love love

 the way it turned out!

I have a very detailed 

step by step tutorial on

my Instagram feed …

And I tagged it with

 #scrappycrossroads 

so that you can 

easily find it and 

join in my

fun Instagram sew along!!!

Do you Instagram???

If not…

you are missing out on so much 

quilty inspiration

from a lot of quilty people.

Click here

 to find me there:)

Have a quilty kind of day!

xx

Lori