Make a Quilt: Lazy Crazy

1. Welcome & Introduction: Hey everyone, I'm Karen, aka the work spinster. Welcome to my lazy, crazy class. You've probably seen crazy quilts or at least seen photos of them. They're heavily embellished with embroidery and beads and charms and silk ribbons and all manner of things that had been attached to the world. At the base of all that embellishment, of course though is a piece block. And in this class I'm going to show you a fast and simple method for putting together those base blocks. You can then embellish them to your heart's content of that switch you wish to do. Although this class isn't going to cover how to do those embellishments or you can leave them plain as I have here. The quilt is made using a 10-inch squares and you can either use prepackaged sets where you get that whole wonderful collection all in one package. Or you can cut ten inch squares from your sash. The field that you get will depend heavily on your fabric choices. And there, you've got a whole variety of options out there, of course, in this one, this is the first one that I made. I used 10 inch square set a layer cake from moda. And it has peaches and yellows and greens and browns and creams in it. And it gives it a lovely sort of mix between traditional and modern. This crazy look can be quite modern-looking. The second quote that I made used a different color palette and has a different feel, is more of a completely modern vibe. Has corals and goals, and blues and whites. The collection that I'm going to be using is for the demo is also from moto, so it's a layer cake pack, but it has a much more limited color palette. And they, prints are not as bold enlarge as you'll see on both of these. So the choice that you make will determine what kind of vibe your quilt has. So you can match a room in your house. You can match the personality of a person that you're making it for. You've got lots and lots of different choices. To begin the class. I'll show you the materials you'll need to make these crazy quilt blocks. Then you'll learn how to arrange your 10-inch squares for cutting. How to slice those stacks of squares. Shuffled the pieces to create variety in the blocks, and how to sew and trim the blocks. I'll show you how I lay out the blacks and sew them into a quilt top. You'll learn how to do the borders and we'll talk a bit about quilting. Finally, in a bonus video, I'll show you a few embellished crazy quilt pieces that I'm working on in case you want to consider adding embellishments on your next lazy, crazy quilt? Are you ready? Then let's get quilting. 2. Project: The project for this class is, and I'm sure this will come as no surprise to you to make at least one crazy block using this method. However, as you'll discover, that means you'll actually be making at least six blocks as easily and almost as quickly as one block. Of course, we all want to see your blocks and the fabrics you've chosen to use. So don't forget to post them in the projects tab. 3. Materials and Supplies: Let's talk materials. First thing you'll want to do is to download the lazy crazy pattern, which you will find in the Resources tab on the webpage for this particular course. Remember, you'll need to do that on a web browser, not in an app. This has not only instructions and diagrams for the pattern, but it also includes a couple of sample cutting schemes and we'll talk about these when we get to cutting. But just know that those are at the end of the pattern. If you choose to use them later on. Then of course we're going to want some fabric. You will need ten inch squares for this, which certainly you can cut from your own stash if you like, or you can buy a 10-inch pack. I'm going to be using this chill from's and cheek for motor. And it has lovely blues and tans. I'm going to use this in my bed quilts in the wintertime, post Christmas wintertime. 10-inch square packs, if it's motor, they'll have 42 squares. If it's another manufacturer, it will likely have forties, but there are always 40. Sometimes in imitates you'll get a 20 pack instead of 40. But generally it's a 40 pack. You will need 36 to 38 depending on what cutting scheme you use. But 40 layer cakes, we'll do it for you. If you choose to put on borders, you are going to need for the inner border, five-eighths of a yard, for the outer border, a yard and seven-eighths. And then the binding can be cut from the same fabric as the outer border. If you want a different binding, then you would want five-eighths of a yard for that. I'm not entirely sure that I'm going to put a border on this particular one that I'm doing. I have three of these packs to make a lot of blocks and I'll see we're going to cover borders. If I were going to choose a border for this quilt, I would probably choose something like that, a beige like this for the inner border. And then the outer border, I would use one of the dark blues. That's just because I prefer outer borders to be darker than the inner borders. That's just a personal choice. I could also do a light blue with a dark blue just depends pointer and get to that point, I may decide I went borders and I have to run out and get some fabric. And of course you don't have to use fabric that's part of the collection. If you're using a 10-inch square pack, you may choose something from your own stash or a completely different fabric. Is entirely up to you, but those measurements for the fabric requirements are a part of your pattern. I mentioned cutting, so of course you are going to need some cutting tools. Clear the lovely parting gifts from slippery guts. They always leave. And you will want a rotary cutter. If you have a 60 millimeter, I would suggest that you use direct, but a 45 will work as well. You're going to be cutting through six or seven layers of fabric so you want as much diameter on the blade as you have. I would not use smaller than the 45, but the 45 will work. 60 just gives you a little more diameter for cutting through that many layers that much more really power but cutting ability in it. Be sure you have a sharp blade in here if you haven't changed your blade and awhile, be kind to your cutter, your mat and your fabric, and make sure you have a sharp, if not new blade in it. I know we hesitate to put in new blades because they're expensive. But for this project and going through this many layers, you really will want to do that so that you're cutting news reasonably accurate. Which is not as important in this particular quote is in some, but put in a new blade, it's just, it's safer for you for one thing. Then of course you'll want to match a rotary Matt self-healing mat. This is an old I haven't turned over the measurements and markings are on the other side. I don't use the mat markings for my measurement. I always use my ruler because the markings on your ruler are accurate. And the ones on your mat or not, or at least the markings on your ruler are more accurate than the ones on your mat. So I suggest that you use the ruler for measuring. And speaking of rulers, when we're cutting the attendant squares, a 6 by 12 ruler will be fine. It doesn't actually have to be six inches wide either, but you want at least 12 inch length? I like having a six wide because I've got more places to put my fingers. This is at 1 by 12, but there's just not safe for my fingers. So a 3 by 12 would probably work. Okay. But I like the 6 by 12 and I don't have so much to be moving around then as if I were using a 6 by 24, but a 65 24 absolutely would work if you don't have a 6 by 12 to run out to buy it just for this, you will want a six by 24 if you were going to put borders on because you're going to be cutting links the fabric. And you'll want that length. If you don't have a 6 by 12, this is fine. This is the only real ruler that you really need for the class. Then you will want thread, of course. And I always use a neutral threat almost without exception, I shouldn't say always, but I generally use just a neutral thread. I have black, white, two or three shades of gray and two or three shades of beige. Especially when you're working with as many different fabrics and colors as we're going to be doing here. There's no way you can change the thread in order to match the color that you're sewing, because you're going to be sewing lights to darks in different colors together and you can't match both of them. Make sure the tension on your machine is good and you won't have any trouble with that. I think I'm probably going to be one or the other of these. I've got some grays beiges. Pull this back out again. I've got some grays, beiges, there's white, there's dark blue. So I could use either the grade or the beige. I tend to go more towards the gray, but either one would be fun. So get yourself some good thread I use or fill because it's lovely. Finds Egyptian long staple cotton. It's nice and fine. There's the spool seem like they're expensive. But you get a lot of thread on there. And I also like it because when you wind to Bob and with this the bob and last a long time because it's nice, fine thread. It hides in the fabric pretty well. Let's see what else. All pins, Let's do pins. You may or may not want to use pins if you're doing a border, one or two borders on it, you will probably want pins and I'll demonstrate why. When we get to the border section. For the 10 inch squares, you may or may not. If you're a beginner and you like to be certain with the pins, then by all means you can use pins but you won't really need to. I probably won't. I like to use these clover pins. These are extra fine. There, got little glass heads on them. They are fine and sharps so that when you put them through the fabric, they don't distort it as much. It's not displacing as much fabric. I, I love these. I buy a package every time I see them. I seem to be afraid that they're going to stop making them. So I have a stash. I really loved those pins. I have no connection with clover. I just really liked those pins. You may want something to clip your threads when you finish sewing can be scissors. I've got this thread snips here and you probably won't need it, but I always have a seam Ripper handy. I have seen reapers all over my house. Prefer not to use them, of course, but one never knows. So you might want to have that handy. I think that's it. Oh, sewing machine in good working order, of course. And you'll want some way to measure an accurate scant quarter inch seam when you're sewing. It can be quarter-inch presser foot. It can be your regular presser foot with the needle moved so that you're getting a scant quarter-inch. You can put down on a pad of sticky notes next to it, exactly a quarter inch from that needle, however you want to do that, but you do want to be able to do a quarter-inch scene. That is all that's required. But let's talk about a couple of things that you might want. First of all, is freezer paper, which you can find at your supermarket in there with the freezer bags and whatnot. I don't use this, but I will talk a little bit when we get to cutting about how you may want to use it to begin with when you're first starting to start cutting the ten inch squares. Just as kind of a little cubits for you. I don't want to say a crutch because it's not a crutch but an aid to you when you start doing the cutting schemes. Not at all necessary, but you'll see how they might use that when I'm cutting. The other thing is, I mentioned in the introduction that crazy quotes typically have a lot of embellishments on them. We're not going to cover that in banishment aspect of the class. I will give you some resources on the resources page for books and sites, et cetera, for how to do the embroidery embellishment. It's beyond the scope of what we're going to do here. And there are certainly better embellish shares out there than I am. But if you choose to do that, kind of beyond the lookout for things around your house or when you're out and about. When we can get out and about in the midst of the COVID pandemic now. But fits of lace yarn as threads, beads that you can use if you want to embellish. Again, we're not going to be doing that in this class, but if it's something that you want to add to this quilt, then be on the lookout for those things when you're out and about. And I think that's it for materials. So be sure to go and download the pattern, gather your materials, and we'll come back and talk about cutting. 4. Preview of the Process: Before we get to the actual cutting, I want to show you a little bit about how we're going to do it so you can understand the next steps that we're doing. When you are cutting these and making these blocks, you're going to have a choice of having either five pieces, sorry, six pieces or seven pieces in the block. So the difference between that is just how many and probably what size those pieces are going to be in within the block. You can mix and match those. You can do all that have just six pieces are all that have seven pieces. But you've got two options for doing it. We are going to stack the number of pieces, the number of ten inch squares according to which of these we're going to do. And I'll talk more about that when we actually start cutting. But I wanted to show you first about choosing the fabrics for that. So it doesn't matter whether it's six or seven sections of a block. In the end, the considerations for choosing the fabric is going to be the same. And that is that those pieces are all going to be within the same block. So I'm going to stack up either six or 710 inch squares. All of those will be together in the same block. So as I'm going through this, for example, I may have two squares with the same fabric, so I wouldn't want those in the same block. So they won't go in the same stack together. And I'm going to want some contrasts. So I want some dark and some light. Maybe some that are, have a lot going on and some that have less. The fabric that you choose depends entirely on your tastes. You can have wild and crazy fabric with prints all over or you can have things that are fabrics that are a little less busy. And I don't mean busy in a bad way. Less going on. This doesn't have this fabric doesn't have a whole lot going on. I may in fact do some embellishing on this and I'll use the embellishing to, to give it some month. But just bear in mind, you want to have contrast, perhaps a difference in the size of the prints and some differences in color for that contrast. So let's say on this, I will choose, I'm going to do a stack of six. So I will choose this is a nice dark color that one could go, but I'm just going to kind of go through what I've got. Maybe I may come back to that. And then let me choose something that is still a blue but not as dark. It's a different print. So there's two. I'm going to end up with a really messy stack here. That's the same print here. So I probably don't want to choose that print even though are kind of like that color scheme. I might do. This one's a little different, blue, different print. This one has some gold in it, so it's a possibility. This one's a nice sort of gray with the different prints. And that gives me 4. Probably want to bring in some beige or that gold color in here somewhere so that one would be fine. It's a gray sort of that color. But the print on it makes it seem quite a bit different. So this one would be kind of fun. It's got some of that blue gray in it, but also some goal which will move with that. The nice thing is that using one of these packs, is there already coordinated for you, you know, they're they're all going together, going to go together. All right, so I've got five here and now I'm going to do one of these pages. So that's going to be my stack of six. And you can sort of, I like to do contrast between them. So as you'll see, you're going to have all kinds of combinations of how these are next to each other. But I don't know, it makes me feel better if I do that. So now I've got my stack of six. And at this point then we can start talking about the actual cutting. So I'll just stack these up and try and get them lined up again. The nice thing about 10-inch packs as they line up nicely. One thing I will mention about these 10-inch packs is that for this quilt, it doesn't matter if they are exactly 10 inches and exactly square. But for some quotes that might be important and just be aware as you're purchasing them that not all ten inch squares are 10-inch nor are they necessarily 12 r square. So if you've got a little portable tape measure as you go out and shop, then you can measure it to make sure that it's at least ten inches square. Okay. Modus pretty good. In fact, if they are there, they are a little bit on the side of of larger. So I'm always sure with motor at least happened so far that I will actually get ten inches to work with. Okay. So let's move on to the actual cutting then. 5. Cutting for the Blocks: Let's start out by looking at the pattern and then I'll show the actual cutting. So we have, have stacked the six fabrics here and now we're going to start slicing them in irregular shapes. They aren't exactly random, but they aren't regular. It's not like we're cutting five inch squares out of this. So we've got them stacked up, right sides up. I want them all to be right sides up. Unless you want the reverse of the fabric to be the right side. And you're going to align the edges pretty carefully. And we'll probably do a little more adjusting on this, but it's in pretty good shape. Then you're going to use your rotary cutter and slice across a corner. So I would take my, let me find my 6 by 12 here blade across and just make a slice. Then I'm going to move that stack of the pieces that I just cut and sort of move them off to the side. So when I make my next cut, I'm not cutting through that. So then I'm going to take a second cut from what's left. So this is already cut. I'm going to now make a cut from what's left. Make a straight cut. Then I'm going to just keep doing that with the leftover fabric and I'll show you that in a minute. As I'm doing that, I am probably because I have that ruler. I'm going to pull that stack of pieces that's already been cut, lay it out on the ruler in the same orientation so that as I do each of these pieces, I'm going to move them back into place with the other pieces that have been cut. We need them to be in the original order of the stack and in the same place. So you'll do five slices. Do you have six fabric shoe make five slices? If you have seven fabric shoe make six slices, so you can see how that operates, right? It's that you have one more fabric stack when more 10-inch square than the number of slices you're going to make. All right, so in this case I've got a stack of six. I'm going to make five slices and it will give me six blocks, each. A bit different. I'll show you that in a minute. Hang with me, and then we're going to start shifting. But let's start with the cutting. And if you're a little uncertain about how you want to cut that, I give you some schemes here at the end of the pattern that will show you how to do it. So for example, this would be cut number 1. Then I'd come and do cut number two. Then from what's left, I do 345 and I give you several different ones so that your blocks wouldn't be all the same. There are also some for the Sixth Circuit schemes, the six gets gains as exactly the same except that you're cutting through seven pieces of fabric instead of six. Alright. So let's actually do one and let's follow a cutting. You do not have to follow these schemes. You can do your own. You just want to make sure that you don't have any pieces that are too small because they're going to get lost. Remember they're going to have quarter-inch seems around them. Plush. You're going to be squaring this up. So let's start with say, this scheme, this five cut scheme. And I've got my pieces stacked here to double-check. Okay? Now this table is going to shake a little bit. I think I just put a new blade in here. If not, I will have to run down and do them well, let's do it with the 45 milliliters millimeter. And I have my regular cutting table is downstairs and frankly it's the light down there is terrible. So I'm doing it on this sort of vaguely table upstairs. Alright, so my first cut is going to be like that. So I'm just following the cutting scheme here. Slice through that. And now I have this piece that I can pull away from there. And I'm going to put it on this square of ruler here. So that's gonna go right up here in the corner because that's where I cut it from. And then I'm going on to my next slice, which according to this plan, is going to be across this adjacent corner. And it's going to go toward knowledge in from the border of the block. It's going to cut into that space there. So doesn't have to be exact. And it's a fairly good sized piece. And that's not a good cut because I'm cutting from the wrong angle. Remember when you cut safety first? So you've got your finger away from the cutting edge there. I'm here to tell you, you may have heard me tell the story before. You've taken others or by glasses that it leads like a center of. Again, if you cut off the tip of your finger, it's hard to get it stopped. And so I usually just a review here. I usually put my pinky over here. And because of the size of my hand that makes it nearly impossible for me to stretch over and cut off my fingertip there. Always keep your hands solidly on here. And make sure you have a sharp blade. I am using a quilter select ruler because it's got it's a non pardon me, that's the table shaking. It's got a non slip backing on it. And so I'm grow in my collection of those again, I have no relationship with them. I just like their rulers. All right, and now I'm going to take this second piece and put it there, which is where it was to begin with. Before I cut. And now with what I've got left, I'm going to make this third cut, which is going to go something like that. So again, doesn't have to be exact. And I wouldn't have to follow that scheme. I could just sort of cut that. Put it over in the same place they're on the square up ruler. And now four is going across here. And you can see that I'm cutting these so that they are irregular shapes. They don't have right angles or any of that going on. They're just irregular shapes. There's that piece which is going over on the square of ruler. And now my last cut is going to be like this. Close the blade. And now I have all of my cutting done for six of my blocks, for my quote. All right, and these are then laid out on this the way they were before I cut them. The next thing we're going to do is shuffle these pieces. And that's fun to do. We'll come back and do the shuffle. I'll bet you thought I forgot about showing you the freezer paper trick. In truth, I did, but I'll take care of that now. If you want to use the freezer paper as a sort of template or pattern, you can cut a 10 inch square from the freezer paper minds little wrinkly because I was rolling it to flatten it. And on the paper side, not the waxy side, but on the flat side, you can just following that, the scheme that you're given or just whatever you want, you can draw lines, say like that. And then I want a piece like that. And maybe another piece out over here. And one there, that's 1234. I need one more cuts, so I'll do a smaller one over here. Then. Once I have done that, I can take whatever square is going to be the top of a stack. And my handy wool mat here. I am going to lay this freezer paper template on top. You can see the squares a hair bit bigger than the fabric square the hair bit bigger than 10 inches. Then I wanted to take an iron and just glided over the top. This is wax side down. What you've printed side up. And that will hold it to the paper. So that when you then add this to the top of the stack of your other five fabrics for this one, then I can just cut along that line or roughly along that line. And I don't have to worry about boxing myself into a corner. At least. If you're more comfortable doing this for at least the first few cuts until you get a handle on how it works. It's certainly doable. The wax paper is also reposition bubble. So if you want to do this same scheme again, you could just sort of put it back together like puzzle pieces on top of another stack. So freezer paper template works pretty well. And if you're more comfortable doing it that way, go for it. Now we'll get onto sewing. 6. Crazy Shuffle: Now that we've done the slicing, we're ready to do the shuffle. This slice and shuffle is a fairly common practice or process for quilting these days. You didn't see it in the old days because it didn't have rotary gutters and didn't approach the things this way. But you may see it with the sort of irregular random kinds of cuts. Or you may also see it for a specific pattern, like a Christmas tree, where you'll stack up x number of fabrics and then make the same slices and sew them together so that you'll have x number of Christmas trees. But they'll all be a little different in the background and what's in the trees. Anyway. So this is just a good kind of process to, to know and to learn. We want to have a different fabric in each of these pieces that we're going to do. Because what you see here is basically a block and you don't want to have the same fabric because then what's the point of cutting and PC? So it's very simple. It doesn't really matter the order in which you do this. I'm going to do it sort of roughly in the order that I cut them. So for the first stack that you choose, I'm going to choose this corner. You pick up the top piece of fabric and move it to the bottom. And now you've got a different fabric up here. This is going to be my second stack. This time on the second stack, stack number 2, I'm going to pick up two pieces of fabric and shift those to the bottom. For the third one, I'm going to pick up on 23 fabrics, move them to the bottom of the stack. For the next one, Let's do this one, 1, 2, 3, 4 fabrics this time for the fourth stack, put it under this one, I think I'll do as five, the fifth stack. So that's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 fabrics. Slip those to the bottom. And this last one, I don't need to shift. So this is why we did six fabrics, but just five guts. That gives us six pieces. I don't have to move that one down. And you can see each one of these is a different fabric. If I take off this top layer, Let's pretend die sewing that I have sold it and I move those off. Then again, I have five different fabrics, but now those fabrics are in different places because of the shuffle. So that's shuffled, fixes it for all six layers. They will have all different fabrics to get these back in the right order here. And that's all there is to it. You do the same thing with each of your stacks. And it works the same way. If you are doing six cuts on seven, on seven fabrics, then you just do one under 200, 300, 400, 500. And this time you're also going to do a six sender and you'll end up with seven pieces. And with those all shuffled, we're ready to do some sewing. 7. Sewing the Blocks: Now for the Soviets, I use this scheme to cut this stack. And this was my first, second, third, fourth, fifth cuts. When I start sewing, I'm basically going to go backwards. So in reverse order from what I cut, I always wanted to be doing a straight line. I don't ever want to have to do a corner. And the way to do that is to just go backwards. So if I were to, so these two together, for example, then I've got this funky wise seem there that I don't want to do. But if I do the reverse order, this there we go. I've got it turned. All right. So this was 12345. So if I do it in reverse order from what I cut, I'm going to take these two pieces and sew them together. So just as you might expect, you're going to do them right sides together. Now, these are not going to fit together because remember we don't have a seam allowance built into that cutting. So what I usually do is put them right sides together, try to kind of center them against each other. And then I'm going to sew a quarter inch seam. So just a scant quarter inch seam along this line where these two come together. It actually is this way, I guess. So I'm going to so a scant quarter inch seam here. I'm not going to show you how to, so you know how to do that. And I will start here, the edge here to make sure that I cut. Catch the end of that. Alright, so I will, so this and then I'm going to press it. Either way. It doesn't matter. So in this case, you know, the rule or guideline is unless construction tells you otherwise, press toward the darker fabric. So it's not going to shadow through if you press it toward the lighter. So I'm gonna go, so this seem press it probably to this blue piece, and then I'll come back and we'll look at the next scene. And here is my piece, first section. So to a quarter of an inch, I ended up using the lighter gray thread precedent toward the darker side. And now I have this piece. These edges are not going to line up. Don't let it freak you out. Remember, we didn't add seam allowances when we slice this up. So it's going to be oddly shaped. Now I'm going to lay this down where it was before. And I want to make sure part of the reason is to make sure that I'm getting the correct next piece. If I look at how I cut it. I so these two together, I'm going in reverse order of the cuttings. So from five, I'm going to do four, which is this scene here. And that's this piece. Now I don't have a straight edge to so two here. So I am going to straighten this edge. This is the edge That's going to be so there I need to straighten that out. So I'm just going to take my rotary cutter. The sitting down. So let's see how this goes. Take my rotary cutter, line it up along that longest straight piece, and cut off that little bit of the blue. And now I have a straight edge that I can use to so this piece. So again, it's going to be right sides together. I'm going to sort of center this. So a scant quarter inch and press toward probably this piece. It's lighter than the blue, but it's the pressing of least resistance in this case. Because if I were to try and press it back this way, then I've got that extra bulk of doubling up that seem, so I'm probably going to press it toward the least resistance. Resistances and futile in this case, but it's not the preferred. So I'm going to show that same and we'll be back and trim this up and go to the next piece. I'm back with this piece. So right sides together. I pressed it to the least resistance and I place it back on the stacks. And if I follow my diagram, I've done 54. Now I want to do three. Which attaches to that piece. This piece isn't horrible actually, but it's not straight. So I want to straighten out this edge so that it matches up with that. So I will take this one. And sometimes you have to find the common denominator, but there's going to be one peace that is wider or longer, whatever, you need to cut that off so you've got a straight edge and go back here. And now my next one is going to be here. So I will do that, Press it back. The next one here, I'll have to straighten this edge, put that one on, and finally, straighten this edge. And so that one, I will probably fast-forward my way through all of that. So you get the gist of what I'm doing. And here's the almost finished block. Without the edges trimmed. We are going to trim this to size might be 8.5 inches is going to depend on how many cuts you make, how many slices, and the direction and orientation of those slices. So there's no way to tell yet. We're going to piece all of the blocks first and then we will trim them to size before we start laying them out. And so in the blocks together, we wait until the, all the blocks are finished because if, for example, I trim this one too, as large as I can get out of here and have a good solid border all the way around or edge all the way around. It might be different than if I also did some blocks that had six cuts in it instead of five, that means that block's going to be smaller. So you want to square it up to the size of the smallest block. And we don't know what that is yet. So we are going to wait to do that and we're gonna go on to sewing the next block, which we're going to do in the same order we did before, and reverse order from the scheme. So it would be these two then that one, then that one, that one, and that one. And we'll continue that for all of those on this stack. You will begin to be able to do this without referring back to the diagram in the order in which they're done, you can just see you that, well, okay, this one has to go first because it goes against that piece. It will become more clear to you as you go through it too, but continue to refer to diagrams as you need to as you go. This will become second nature by the time you start doing a couple. So go ahead and start sewing on your blocks. As I say, I suggest that you do them just one stack at a time. You can mix them up and do some stacks with six cuts, some stacks with five. That's up to you if it adds a little more interest, a little more variation in it. If you mix those up, but you certainly don't have to. If you're much more comfortable getting just six instead of seven fabrics, it's however you want to make this quote. I will be back to show you once I have sown my blocks, I will be back to show you how to trim them up. And we'll be using our square up ruler for that are 12.512 in whatever size you have square up ruler for that. So once you finish your blocks, bring them along with your square root ruler. And we'll square these babies up. 8. More Sewing Options: I'm almost ready to square up my 35 blocks. But before I do that, I wanted to point out another option that you have for cutting and sewing. If you, when you finish your blocks, this is a five out of five cuts scheme or I've got six pieces then. And the pieces are naturally larger. In general, when you're doing a five cut is compared to a six cut scheme because there are fewer pieces, so they're larger. If I wanted to add another piece to this, I could use, since I didn't use all of my 40 or 40 of my pieces from my PAC. Actually 42 pieces because this is a motor. Then I could add a piece from one of those and I just cut a corner off of this. I could add that say down here because I have two of the same darkness right next to each other. That seems like a lot of dark blue there. It's actually okay. I've may leave it that way. But I could also add in another piece, these two that are right next to each other, that may be a factor. You could spend your whole life agonizing over those things. So I just cut a corner piece. I sort of auditioned aware that's going to fit. I have to make sure that I'm covering the corner here. So then I would just put them right sides together. And so that seam and then fold it back and trim. I wouldn't turn him until I have done the sewing just in case I've made an error and I didn't quite cover that. And the trimming probably isn't going to get it either. And if I haven't turned it, that I have a chance to go back, take that out, and redo it. So that's an option. Another option is to do a curve here. Excuse me. And other option here is to do a curve. And your hand, if you are comfortable with curves, this is fine. If you are not, you may or may not want to give it a try. If you haven't done curves before, I would recommend that you first try it out on a, I'm going to do it this way. Actually try it out on a couple of pieces of scrap fabric. Alright, so if you wanted to put a curve in earlier, you could certainly do that. The problem with that is that when you cut a curve, when you've stacked six or seven pieces of fabric on top of each other, things are going to shift dramatically. And it's not going to be a clean cut. And it's dangerous to your fingers health to do that. But here it is easier to cut though it may be more of a challenge to so. And here is why. Because you have these intersecting seams here as you're maneuvering that curve around. If you're not used to doing curves, then that's a point where things could go a little. Interestingly for you, shall we say. So, I'm going to add a curve in here and make it a gentle curve if you aren't accustomed to curves for sure. And I'm going to put this piece underneath here. And I want lots of extra here. When I do this curve, I'm going to do it around here. And that means that I have to make sure that I'm including this bottom piece in all of that curve. The actual curve is going to be here, but I need to be able to square this up. So I've got them on top of each other, so they have the same curve. It's still going to shift a little bit because I'm doing two layers. But let's see how this goes. Make sure you pay attention to where your fingers are, especially in relation to that blade. And I'm just going to do a nice gentle curve across here. So then that piece is gone from the top. This piece underneath becomes a scrap. And now I have this curve to so I did not, again, as we did with the straight lines, I don't have a seam line built into this cut. So they are not going to match exactly. And that is kind of good for people who are just starting out with curves. So just as a quick review, when I'm sewing this, I'm going to have the convex this curve going outward on top. And I'm just going to flip it right sides together. This looks really scary. It's not so bad. And I'm going to start it up here. And I'm going to sew a quarter inch if you like to pin curls. Absolutely do that. In that case, I would mark this in half, mark this curve in half, and then match those two points up is right there. I would match that Pinot, go back and match the start. The problem is your start is not where you think it might be. There's going to be some overlap because again, we don't have the scene put in there. So because this is a gentle curve and you're going to be able to trim it later. Give it a try doing this and just start here, pin the start if you'd like. Take it to the machine. If you have a needle down position, use that. That's very helpful. And my fall off, it's perfect because when I stop when I'm using needle down, the presser foot lifts up just slightly so I could shift things around. I've done enough curves that I don't really have to do that, but go slowly. Take your time. Keep your fingers out of the way. And just do a quarter inch seam as you come to it. Just start to move this over and continue with that seem as it goes through. Now this is on the bias, so don't be stretching it and pulling it down here to fit. Just move it over as you go. The trick, the thing that finally saved me on doing curves, I had so much trouble for so long. And that is just a reminder that you are paying attention to the quarter-inch where the needle is going into the fabric, not up here at the front of your presser foot, which is I don't know why it was going by that. If you do an a straight line, straight team, that's fine, but it doesn't work on a curve. You need to have that quarter inch where the needle is. So keep an eye on that. Take your time. Keep your fingers out of the way and just slowly move it down. Stop, put the needle down and shift a little bit if you need to. If you're going slowly. And as you get used to it, you'll be able to do it without doing stopping or very little stopping youth once you get used to it. So give that a try if you like. If not, no big deal. The quote looks perfectly fine with all straight lines. All right, so next up we're going to be squaring up the blocks. I'll see you back here. 9. Trimming the Blocks: I'm here with my 35 blocks, including the one that I added, the curve 2, which has a lot of extra hanging out. So I wanted to show you it was there, but I'll put it aside for the moment. So I have my 35 blocks finished. There are different sizes. These are both five cut and six cut. So those that had the six cuts or the seven pieces are probably going to be smaller than the ones with the five cuts because they have more teams. So what I want to do is measure each of these and find the, shall we say, smallest common denominator. So the block that is the smallest is the one that's going to determine the size of all of my blocks. So I have measured these and I know that I can get an 8.5 inch square out of all of them. Can't get a nine inch, but I can get an 8.5 inch and actually eight inches finished is what I was aiming for. So that works for me. So I'm going to take a block and now I need to trim this to 8.5. So I'm going to use my square of ruler, this particular brand of ruler. And you will find this with other brands as well. Has, instead of starting with a one inch on the edge, they are starting with a half-inch on two of these edges, three of these edges. So I checked it off here so you could more easily see where the 8.5 is. Because if you're looking at, it seems a little wonky if you aren't used to this kind of ruler. So just trust me that I've got the 8.5 marked off here. So it's 1.52345678 inch over here. Starts with a full inch up here, so it's 1.52345678. So I just wanted to make that easier for you to see where that is. So in order to square it up, I need to place my ruler so that, that over. I have a little excess fabric all around. And I can see that right up to this blue tape. This is an event disadvantage of having that safe there because it's, the tape isn't there. I can see exactly where that edges, but we can still do it here. I didn't lay that down very well. All right, so now I can move this around and maybe I want more of this brown in here. So I would move it down here, but I'm losing. May not be able to see it on camera, but I'm off the edge there so I would have to move it up a little bit. I could move it over to this side to a certain degree, but now I've hit the edge over here, so that's as far as I can go. And you can just keep moving it around until you find a combination that you like. But you've still got fabric hanging out each of these edges. You could even do it a little more crooked if you want. Though. Some of these, a lot of these edges, all of these edges should be on the street of grain because those are still the the original edges of the 10-inch square. And it's just easier if you are on grain where you can't be, when you're going to be sewing things together. You've been working with bias all this time. So why not give yourself straight now? All right, hip stand up in order to do this good. So now I'm going to cut these two sides. Let me make sure of got this all on camera for you. So I'm going to cut these two sides. First one and those two. So now those edges are straight. I'm going to turn this a 180 degrees. Now these two sides are already cut, so I can use those to line up my 8.5 inch mark here, which is the edge of the tape. For me. You may or may not have tape on your ruler. And now you can see here I've got a lot hanging over the edge here, but just a little bit there doesn't matter. As long as I've got a little bit to trim. And then those two sides. And there's my 8.5 inch block which will finish at eight inches. So let's do another one. This one has more even edges except for that one. So now I'd rather have a gut quite a lot of this down here. So I'm just going to give the dark up in the upper right-hand corner. A little more of the showing. So I'm sure that I'm covering fabric and all of these edges will trim these two sides first, turn it 180 degrees. So that now I can line up those two trimmed edges with my 8.5 inch line there. And then turn that off. Always close your blade when you finish your gut. And there's another 8.5 inch. So when we saw these together, they're going to be the same size. And that's going to make life much easier. So I will just continue with that for all of the blocks. Let me show you this one. It's really nothing different here, but it's got a curve on it. So let's cut the curve corner first. Again, I have to make sure that I'm covering all the edges. Pretty sure that's going to get covered, but I have to make sure that is. So it's going to not show much of a curve there. I didn't cut much of that corner off. And I have to be sure. I've got stuff up there and then over here. So now I've trimmed these two sites, including the corner that gives me more to add onto a corner of another blocks if I decide I want to do that. So that's trend. Turn that around. Line those trimmed edges up. The 8.5 inch. I'm not doing this stellar job of at the moment that we are in now. Those two always remember to keep my fingers out of the way in closing this lake when I'm finished cuttings and now I have a curved piece that I can add in. It actually with this other light piece kinda makes an interesting shape there. So sometimes things spontaneously happen That looks pretty cool. Many times that happens actually. So I'm just going to finish up with the rest of my blocks and then we will come back and lay them out. 10. Laying Out the Blocks: Here are my 35 blocks neatly trimmed into 8.5 inch squares. Next step is to lay them out. I'll note before we start doing that, that the, there is no natural light in my sewing studio downstairs, so it's not good for filming. So instead of my design wall, I'm going to be doing this on my living room floor. Which you all may be doing as well. If you don't have a design wall, you could also use the top of a bed. All of these things contingent upon you not having a cat or a dog who likes to help you out with such things. In which case, look for a room that has a door you can close or accept their health if you'd like to do that. So ordinarily I would do it on my design wall. If you have a design wall, that's where you would want to do it, it's really better if you see it vertically for some reason. And you're going to be seen at it sort of an angle as I film it. So if you have a design wall, by all means, do that. But I will be using my living room floor just for the sake of your eyes. See you in my living room. Hey everyone. Welcome back. Here we are on my living room floor, which I have vacuum. And I will know that vacuum again because you know, the dreaded threads everywhere for I do this. I have my 35 blocks all trimmed. Before I start laying them out. That, Oh, I wanted to do a little rearranging because when i so these of course I sold them as groups. So I have groups of 67 together that are the same cutting scheme. There are different fabrics are in different places, but it will be noticeable if I have all with the same design in the same place. So first thing I'm going to do is go in and just sort of separate them pretty randomly into different piles so that I don't have the same design everywhere. I will when I am laying them out, look at the color, rotating things around. So I'm just going to keep sorting these here and there. Of course I can make more adjustments as I laid them out, but I just think it's easier to do this before I start putting them out in the grid. And we're going to do a grid of seven rows of five blocks each. If you choose to make more blocks or fewer blocks. You could also do, say if you wanna do a smaller size for a baby quilt, Kripke world, a child quote you could do say three by four blocks. Or. You could still do, say a four by six, not put on borders or different borders. You've got lots of choices here. This is the point also before I start laying things out. After I've got them well, actually before I cut them, I would have done some embellishing or I could do it after. Because it's easier, of course, to handle the blocks before they are put together. All right, now I've got these in stacks of random locks and I'm going to start laying them out in a five by seven grid. As I am doing that on going to look and check to make sure, for example, I'm going to choose not to put these two pieces together. They're the same pattern, same design on the fabric, and I don't want those to go together. You may like that, look, and choose to do that. But I am not going to do that as I'm laying them out. I can rotate them. Maybe I do want those two brands together. Maybe I don't. So I can just start shifting around. So I'm going to lay these out and I'll be back with you after I have done that. Okay, and here they are laid out, at least in my first layout for it. You might have noticed that most of the time I just laid down the block that came up next on the stack as I was going across the rows, once in a while, I decided no, I didn't want that block next to another one there because there was too much of the same fabric happening, whatever reason. But I only did that a few times. The thing about laying out quotes like this, scrap quilts and crazy quilt blocks is that you can drive yourself crazy and spend years rearranging. And when you move one block, then you've got to move a different block and then you've gotta shift another block. So you can spend as much or as little time as you want arranging them, and then rearranging them. But after you have laid them out, either your first layout or when you think you're finished, Be sure to stand back from it. As I said, it's best on a vertical wall, but we don't all have that luxury. So stand up as close to sort of over on top of it as you can and then stand back and look at it and see if there are any spots that strike you as being unbalanced or an even. And I really only see one spot that bothers me. And that is right here. It could be there's a lot of light going on there. There's a lot of light over there as well. It could be partially that I've, this is the only place I have a curve. When I demonstrated that curve, I did that Locke. And so I actually had one extra block. I'm going to pick up. This one that isn't curved. That in there. I've just got a lot of light going on right there. And then those two fabrics are right next to each other. So let me find one that has a lot of dark and swap it out. See what that That's. So I said you can keep doing this for the rest of your life and still see things that might be changed. All right. Take a look at that. Yeah, that's better. I like that better. So this is going to be my layout for this. And I'm going to sell these blocks together just as you always, so blocks together, see now I'm second guessing myself. There's another bit that seems a little off to me now. It's okay. I can live with that. Alright. So however you like to put blocks together if you'd like to, so rows first and then so the rows together, or if you'd like to do the columns first and then so those altogether. You can press the scenes whichever way you like if you are doing, say, sewing rows together and then pardon me. Getting older, I can get down, remains to be seen whether I can get up. Then you will if you're putting rows together. So in them first and then so in those rows to each other, then you could so press all of your seams going that direction on this first row and then this direction on the second alternate that so that the seams butt up against each other. Same thing if you're doing the columns first. Just do them in opposite directions so that when you go to sew them all together, the seams robot up. You can also the seams open. You've got lots of intersecting seams here, which means more bulk when you are pressing them to one side or the other. All things being equal I generally to one side or the other, unless construction really demands otherwise. But there are lots of people who prefer to press Open originally. I believe that seems we're pressed to one side, particularly when they were hand sewing because that made the seam stronger. But now with sewing machines and good tension, that's less of an issue. So whatever you like to do will work fine. So we're going to get these laid out and so it all together. And next, we're going to talk about borders. 11. Adding Borders: It's time to talk about folders. List of all. Let's take a look at the pattern here and the fabric requirements. You'll notice that the inner border is five-eighths yard and the outer border is 17 eighths. Want to note ahead of time that the inner border you are going to cut as you might expect as you usually do for quilting, which is width wise. So from salvage to salvage or in the US, 40 to 40 inches across. So that's going to be cut as you would normally expect to. But for the outer border, you've got one in 78 yard. That is long enough for you to cut that border lengthwise of the fabric instead of across the width. I have done that because typically for my outer border on this, it's going to be a fairly large print where a siem is going to be noticeable. And I just don't want that look for this quilt, so I cut it lengthwise so there's no scene. If you want more information or demonstration of how to cut lengthwise for a border, then you can check out my whatever class. The border for that quilt is put on a little differently than here. But you can look at how I cut lengthwise if it's a little more of a challenge because it's going to be 70 to wish sorts of inches. And your ruler just isn't going to cover that even when it's folded in half. So you can check out whatever if you want some help in how to cut lengthwise. So just remember the inner border is going to be cut as you would expect it to. Because I am using a planar fabric and the seam isn't going to be noticeable. The outer border is going to be cut lengthwise, so keep that in mind. And then from the outer border you're going to have extra fabric from the width. So you can use that to do your binding. If you want to have the same fabric as the outer border. If you want a different fabric, then you'll use a, you'll need 50, 80 yard for that. Alright. So now let's talk about getting the borders on. When you have pieced your blocks together into the quilt top, you're going to lay it out and then you're going to measure it three times toward the center of the quilt. Don't do it toward the outside. That's less accurate. So you're going to measure it in three places. Across the center of the quilt. Somewhere in the center of the quote. And you're going to measure it lengthwise, then you'll take an average of those three measurements. So you add the three of them together and divide by three. And you are going to cut your strips for the side of your quilt that length. Now if you're doing the inner border, you may, you are probably going to have to piece it. So you will cut. Let's see if we're doing 72 year-old cut four strips, sew them together. And then cut them to this measurement. So peace summit, if you need to, you will need to unless you do it quite a bit smaller quilt. And then once you have piece those together, then you'll cut them to that length. Now you can use whatever with the border here you went. The pattern calls for 2.5 inch wide cut. For the inner border. You can change that if you wish to. So you're going to pee strips, cut them to the average length of the center. And so the strips on the left and right side. When I am so it borders on I will mark the center point of both the quilt top and the border strip. Pin that in the center and then pin the edges or the ends of it. Then I know I've got at least some equal distribution if I need to ease anything in between the pins. In fact, if it's a reasonably long quote, you may want to mark and pin quarters instead of just halves. That helps you distribute it so you don't get toward the end and all of a sudden you have to scrunch up one of them a lot toward one end. Alright, so you will, so those right sides together scant quarter inch seam. And I will usually press toward the border because that's the pressing toward least resistance. Unless it's a very light border, then I might try and press it away from the border. Though. That's a lot of PC and then at odd angles going on there, so usually I just press toward the border. Alright, once you have those on impressed it, then you are going to do the same thing except that you're going to measure three times across the width toward the center of the quilt. This time including in your measurement the borders that you just sewed on. And again, you'll take the average of those three measurements. Piece if necessary, and a piece border strips and then cut to that length. Then you also those on again, divided in half. He's things if you need to write sets together, quarter-inch, same press toward the border. If you're putting on the second border, this outer border. And remember this is the one where you're going to cut the stirrups lengthwise. Once you have the, the inner border on and it's pressed, then you're going to lay it out and just do the same thing except now you're treating this border is a part of the top. So you'll measure again three times along the width toward the center of the quilt. Take an average of that and cut two strips lengthwise on your fabric. For the left and the right side, you'll only need one strip for each because you're cutting it length wise. If you are following the pattern, you will cut those 5.5 inches wide. Or you can choose whatever width you wish. Again, you're going to see those on left and right side. Press toward the borders. Then as you might expect to do, you are going to measure for the top and the bottom borders by measuring three times across the width of your quilt top, which now includes those two outer borders on the side, average those measurements and cut the strips for the top and the bottom. So those on and your quilt top is finished and you're ready for quality. When it comes to quilting for this quilt, I tend to I probably wouldn't do custom cruelty in on it because there's enough going on with the blocks, with the piecing. So if I were going to do well, I don't know. Let me think about this for a minute because it is a crazy quilt. And if you want to do something a little wild and crazy with thread colors, for example. It, in some ways, you might think it would detract from the looks of the quote, but this is crazy quilt. So that might be kind of an interesting thought. So they upshot is of course, as always quoted as you wish. But if you don't want to spend the time and the money with custom cool teen, than that would be fine. You've got lots of things to look at in C with just the PC. And again, remember that if, when, once you It's quilted and you're ready to do the binding. You have fabric leftover from this outer border. If you want to bind it in the same fabric, you'll have nice long strips that you can piece together. You let me see 12. Yeah, you may need for probably still need Forrester ups, but that's better than having to piece a lot of strips together. And then your quilt will be ready to hang up or put on a bed, or just have people admire. 12. Bonus: Samples of Embellishment: I want to share with you some of the embellished pieces that I'm working on in case you want to give it a try yourself or see the kinds of things that you might do. Or if you've just haven't seen that many embellished crazy quilts. This is a piece with neutral Goldie things that I'm working on. And you can see that this change still chimps, not really following the seam. I'm going that general direction, but just doing a simple chain stitch, I've got a fly's stage going along this seam. Often you will see embellishments that cross the seams. Not always, but that's often it and you have all kinds of choices. I've got some a beaded fly stitch go in here and some buttons on there to act as flowers and then just some basic embroidery things going on here. This is another neutral piece that I'm working on that has some hand crocheting pieces that I've done that I have sewed up against the scene. You can also sort of piece things in as you go. Although with the method we used for lazy crazy, yeah, you could do that. Actually, you could do that. It's going to say it, it wouldn't be as easy, but you could do that. This has so much bulk that I just butted it applicants the semen and hand stitched on there here I've added to beating. Obviously lots more to do on that one. This one, you can find some pretty fancy laces that you can use. This one is an ice blue. Or I found some really gorgeous laces look at that. Isn't that wonderful. And then some hand tagging that I did myself pick this up at a fabric store. I don't even remember where when this is a piece of block that is finished with the embellishments. And as you can see, there's a lot going on here that lots of buttons and beat it. French and silk ribbon roses, silk ribbon bows. All kinds of things going on here. And I have done that mostly on the planar fabrics where I have these points out as I've done last, just because that's plenty going on already. This is waiting for more blocks. It's taken me a long time to do that, but I'm okay with that because I enjoy doing those. Here's some Boolean embroidery going on, so you can make them pretty simple or you can make them pretty fancy. A couple of finished pieces, actually, just little pieces. Here's one that I just had some scraps leftover, and I love purple. So I added green in as accent. And again, I've got beat infringe going on and buttons and embroidery. Beaded embroidery, silk ribbon, bow, and lots of little flowers there. It's just fun too. Figure out what you might put in there and do something a little funky are a little different. This is maybe a little less successful, but I've got some fiber in here with a fly stitch over it so that one's kind of fun. And then this is a little tiny one that I did for a challenge. It's 365 day challenge, where you did a piece in a medium of your choice every day for a year. And this was a prompt to create a piece that you could hold in the palm of your hand. And I had chosen crazy quilt is my theme. Spoiler alert. I didn't do 365 days of it. But this was gotta cute. I had a lot of fun doing this. I got to play with embroidery, stitches and buttons in beads, but I didn't have to spend my lifetime doing it. So that one's kind of fun. This one is a vest that I've been working on. It's been awhile since I've worked on it and I pulled it out for this and now I am itching to get back to it. This is all done with machinists. So these embroidery stitches that I have here are sewing machines these days can have so many funds to choose on it that you absolutely can use that if you're not into handwork or a hand embroidery. This includes, I embroider this on my machine as well in the center of the story that I bought at a flea market somewhere. And this is just a piece of a toilet that I also got at a flea market. And then this, this is what is going to make this vessel special. This is some Irish lace that was crocheting by my great grandmother who came over from Ireland when she was a very young woman. So those are some options, the kinds of things that you can do if you choose to embellish your blocks. If you don't, that's fine. I like the blocks just plain. Obviously, keep making quilts with those blocks and leaving them just plain. I will include some resources in the Resources tab, books and websites and whatnot that I have consulted and enjoy looking at. When it comes to embellishing crazy quotes. 13. Final Thoughts: Just a quick note about the name crazy. The crazy quilts do look crazy in that they seem to have no rhyme or reason and oftentimes they don't frankly. But the two most common stories that I've heard for it are, first of all, that they were made by women in insane asylums during Victorian times to keep their hands busy. And the second one is that women went crazy in Victorian times making them, which I think embellishing the response. So I pretty sure they didn't go crazy doing that. Other things about Victorian times might have driven them crazy, but I don't think crazy quotes was one of the best explanation that I've heard. And the one that I'm sticking with is that this resembles the cracking on pottery glazes that you'll see on some pots. And that's called crazy. And this really does look like crazy on pots. So that's the story I'm going with. If you want to have a different story, It's up to you. But that's the story I'm sticking to. And that's a wrap on our lazy, crazy glass. Thank you so much for joining me. It's been a lot of fun for me and I hope you've had fun making this quilt. I also hope you will show me your blocks and you're finished quotes in the project section, love to see what you're making. There are so many different options and each of yours is going to look different because of the fabrics that you choose. Thanks again for joining me. Happy quilting, Peace out.