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Today I'm going to show you how to make a quilt from a layer cake and we're going to use the whole layer cake with no waste. So there's a link right below the video and t It's a very plain looking block, but once we make a bunch of them in different colors and put them together, it's going to make a nice secondary pattern that will show up in the quilt. So all we need is two yards of the background and then we need our layer cake. Now mine has 40 squares, most have 40 or 42, and we're going to use most of these in the patchwork and we're going to save out some of the light ones to use in the border. Now let's pick out the darker layer cake squares here because we want to make sure we have enough contrast between these fabrics and the background. So all of these darker ones are going to work. Even these will work because they have a lot of print on them. There just happens to be some really light ones in here. That one will work. That one will work. See t So we won't use t Probably won't use t All the rest look good. I have the squares separated now. So I have 32 darker ones and eight lighter squares. Now the lighter squares we're just going to set aside. We'll use those later when we do the borders. The dark squares all get cut exactly the same way. So the first then we're going to cut them into two and a half inch strips and cut those in half. So they're each three and a half inches long. Now I've written the pattern so you could do it from a jelly roll. If you Now the background also gets cut into two and a half by three and a half inch pieces. So I'm going to cut three and a half inch widths and then subcut into two and a half. If you happen to have a jelly roll that you're using for your background, you will have two and a half inch strips. Again, just cut it into three and a half inch segments. It works either way. Now we'ready to start sewing. We've just got these two pieces. So I'm going to take one background and one of the colored pieces and I'm going to line up t Now I want to stitch from that point down to that point. And the easiest way to do it is to put a piece of tape on your sewing mac Lined up from the needle hole straight down. So all I have to do is lift t And keep t Just go slow and careful and keep that point right on the line. Now if you prefer, of course, you can mark the back of all of your squares, all of your rectangles with a chalk or pencil. But all you have to do really is keep it on that tape line. So when we open t So I'm going to go ahead and do that with all of these pieces. Now that we've got all these rectangles done, we are going to want to cut off t So I'm going to leave a quarter inch seam allowance. I've got my quarter inch lines on the stitc Now I know I said earlier there was no waist. There is a little bit of waist. So there's our rectangle, but I'm not going to use t Now I might save that to stuff a pin cus There's probably lots of to iron these rectangles, all I'm going to do is put the light fabric down and then peel t So it goes really fast. I kind of do it assembly line fas I open up and iron. So now all we have to do is grab two different ones. They're exactly the same, but we're going to turn one around and we're going to stitch them together here. Now they're the same length. There's no seam matc Just stitch right down here. And that is the whole block. So I'm going to go ahead and do that with all the rest of my rectangles. Make a bunch of blocks. Now that all the blocks are done, we can start laying out the quilt. It's very easy. The blocks only go up and down or sideways. So you can just keep alternating and keep laying them out Now once you have them a bunch laid out, you can start trading around so that you can get colors you But what I do first is just lay out a whole bunch of them. Just keep alternating up and down and sideways, up and down and sideways. So these blocks, they're easy to make. They're fairly repetitious, w T Now we can see the pattern showing up. So you can see these dark pinwheels and you can see kind of a light windmill right there. And it just flows throughout the whole quilt. So I'm going to go ahead and sew the rows, sew the blocks into rows and sew the rows together. There's no fancy matc You have to match all of your intersections. But as long as you alternate the directions of your seam allowance. So the first row with all the seam allowances to the right, the next row with all the seam allowances to the left, you'll be able to nest everyt The patchwork is all done and that part was really easy, really easy to sew those blocks together. Now let's work on the borders. So what we're going to use, remember those pieces we cut off of all the layer cakes? We're going to use those pieces and then we're going to take the reserved layer, layer cake squares and we're going to cut these into strips, a three inch, a three inch and a four inch and then we will have no waste. Now we're going to take all of these pieces and we're going to sew them side by side into a really wide strip unit. Now I'm going to use a very small stitch length because I want my stitches to be really little. Because once we stitch these together, we're going to cut them and I don't want the stitc So I'm just going to pick up a variety of colors. I'm not going to go in any particular order and I'm not going to worry when I come to the four inch width. I'm just going to sew it on as if it was the same width as all the others. So I'm just going to sew these together. So let me show you. They're all the same length. I'm going to use a quarter inch seam but very tiny stitches. So I'm just going to keep adding pieces here and every time I stitch, I'm going to finger press to the right. And I'm going to keep adding stitches until I've got all these strips sewn together. So now we've got a big long piece strip unit here and we are going to press it up a little bit. We want to iron it a little bit flat before we cut it. I did finger press everyt But I Now I've got t I'm going to do four or six layers. Now if you're not comfortable cutting that many layers, you can just make your patchwork piece with half as many pieces and then cut it and then stitch them together afterwards. You need to do what's comfortable for you. I don't mind cutting t So it's really not that many layers. Now I'm going to put it on my cutting board here, make sure it'straight. The strip unit, it's 10 inches wide. So if you want to make a zero waste quilt, you can cut four pieces that are two and a half inches wide out of here and that'll use up the whole strip unit. Now I notice that I have some slight imperfections over here All of my seams are not, the edges are not meeting up perfectly. So I'm going to do mine with an almost no waste method, not a zero waste. I'm going to cut off a half inch here and I'm going to cut all four borders to 1u20444 inches and then they will have nice straight cuts on both edges and I'll be a lot happier when I sew these onto the quilt. So we're going to take two of these and I'm going to spread them out on a big table. You don't have to have a big table, but it helps a little. So these are patchwork borders. So we're going to take the first one and open it up here. See how fun that looks already. Now the second one, it's exactly the same and all I'm going to do is slide t So I'm just going to measure t And t So we might end up somewhere along here where two meet, but for the most part there's no matc It's just going to look very random. Now I'm just going to flip t I'm going to pin it all the way down every foot or so. And t Now I'm just going to stitch these two borders together using a quarter inch seam and just leave t It's possible we might need it at the far end, but I don't Now I'm going to finger that, finger press that seam to one side. So I Now that the Patrick border is done, you can see if we put t But I'm planning on putting what I call a sandwich border. So I'm going to put black on both sides of the patchwork. I'm going to sandwich the Patrick between these two guys and then put it onto the quilt. So I'm going to go ahead and sew these into long strips and put them on each side of the Patrick. I've got the borders on both sides of the Patrick. Now I'm going to show you how to put these on your quilt with mitered corners so that the pattern will meet up in the corners. So each, I've got two long border pieces here. Each one of these is going to do a short border and a long border. So let's cut the short border first. So we're going to lay t Do it a foot or two up, even across the middle and slide it over so that you've got enough hanging off the edge here so that when we make a diagonal line here, you've got enough space there. So here's how we can tell. So if we put t We're going to want to put t Now my half square triangle won't make it all the way up, but that's okay. Once I've got it started, I'm just going to turn t Now I'm going to slide t Now I'm going to smooth t And I'm going to draw another line over here with the same angle. So now t Now make sure you've got t You can use the patchwork lines here to help you make sure it'straight and just start your line, go as far as you can. And then turn it around and finish your line. So I'm going to do two borders that are then I'm going to do the same t Now I'm just going to cut on that drawn line and t Seam allowances included to fit onto the patchwork. Here's the two shorter borders and they're pinned onto the shorter edges of the quilt. Now the longer borders were cut exactly the same way. So you still match up the end of t So they're exactly the same length done, exactly the same method as the short ones. So I'm just going to peel t And I'll pin it all the way along here and then I'll show you how to stitch these on. So we're going to stitch each side on separate and we're going to stop and start one quarter inch from the edge. So up here I'm not going to start stitc I'm going to start right there w So I'm going to start and I'm going to back tack just a little bit. So I'm going to leave my pin there so I can see where to start right here. Once Stop when you get a quarter inch from the edge. So I'm coming to the far end of the border and if you Then you can stitch to the dot and back tack. Now we can fold t Again, if you want to put a dot there, put one right here. That'll be where we start and stop and that is going to be right where we stopped stitc So that's right where we stopped stitc That's right where t So you want to start stitc And stitch all the way down t Now that we've got the borders on, let me show you what happens. We'll open that one up and all we have to do is stitch t So to stitch that, I'm going to fold these so that those edges are right sides together. I'm basically folding the quilt along a 45 degree angle there. I'm going to turn it around and I'm going to stick a couple pins in. So I'm going to make the very tips match here and I'm going to make sure that my seams here, where they're coming together, I'm going to make sure those line up. Again, put a couple pins in. Same t And now you can see those chalk dots on both sides. And all we have to do is stitch from that dot all the way down. So I'm going to put the needle in right there and I'm going to back tack. I'm going to go forward and then backwards. Don't go backwards beyond the dot and then stitch right along the edge. These mitered corners are a little bit scary even for me, but t Now let me show you what it looks There we go. I've got it all stitched up, ironed flat, and it's all loaded onto the quilting mac Now we need to pick out a good thread color. I'm pretty sure if I use black it will match, but it'll be way too dark in these light areas. So I've pulled off some different gray colors here. T It's a little bit stark in there. Now we've got a medi It's going to show a little more in the black, but that's really only on the border. It barely shows in there, not going to show much in the patchwork. And of course we could always go with t Again, we'll show even more there, but just And I really t And I'm going to use these feathers. That's going to blend in with all the patchwork. It's not going to stick out and it's going to be nice and even. I've got the whole quilt done and I'm so happy with how the quilting finished up. I love the fact that the thread is showing in t Now the quilt ended up about 55 by 63, a really fun size to make. And the technique that I showed you for putting on the mitered borders will work on any quilt. It's just an awesome way of putting on those mitered borders. Now on the backing, I use t And you can't see the quilting at all with that light silver thread. And It looks great on the top and it looks great from the back side. I hope you enjoyed it. Now we're going to have a giveaway. T Really nice cozy quilt designs pattern. It's got these awesome dragonfly wing fabrics all in the top on the back. Just beautiful fabrics. And you can win t So all you have to do is go to the link that says giveaway. And then enter your email address and your name. And you might win t So good luck. Now if you That would really help us out. Happy quilting.