Scrappy Mystery Quilt-a-long Step 1

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Ready to join me for step one of our Scrappy Mystery Quilt-a-long?! I’ve been madly chain sewing and have barely made a dent in my 2 1/2″ scraps… I may need to make more than one of these…!

First up an overview of the Mystery Quilt and what you need…

This Mystery Quilt will be very, very easy… and it’s also quite mindless because we will do a lot of chain sewing. I think at the moment mindless is what I need, don’t know about you…

Scraps

I have planned it to use up scraps, but of course if you like you can make it from something coordinated like a jelly roll, or cut up a charm pack, etc… I think I will make another version with leftovers from a Christmas jelly roll, which will make it scrappy, but matching, if that makes sense…

Background Fabric

You will need 2 1/2″ strips of background fabric. I would suggest using white or cream. I will be using white. You can use scraps if you have them, or cut them from yardage. Depending on how many borders you want, I’d set aside 2 meters of background fabric to cut into strips.

So that’s about it for intro and fabric requirements.

On to…

Step 1 of the June 2020 Scrappy Mystery Quilt-a-long!

Today we are going to make 9 patches 🙂

We’ll be making 12 of them, so you will need 108 two and a half inch squares.

If you are confident with sewing nine patches then go ahead and sew and I will see you back here on Friday for Step 2!

If you want some hints and tips, keep reading 🙂

Sewing the 9 Patches

The easiest way to make the 9 patches is to chain sew… so once you’ve counted out your 108 squares, set aside 36 of them. I put the other 72 in a container:

Which I then sat next to my machine:

Chain piece the squares into pairs

Try to not get too obsessed with which ones to sew together… just grab two and sew!

Chain sewing

If you don’t know how to chain sew, here’s a quick explanation:

As you get to the end of sewing one pair together, stop, then grab the next pair of squares, and without cutting the thread, just feed the fabric under the presser foot and keep sewing.

I’ll be putting up a video in the new Facebook Group (will try to set this up tomorrow and link to it) to show you how if you’ve never done this before.

36 Chains!

After chain sewing, you will end up with something like this:

Cut the pairs into groups of three

I like to use my Cutting Gizmo… makes it so quick and easy.

After this step you will end up with 12 groups of 3 chain pieced pairs:

Add the remaining 36 squares to the pairs you just pieced

I like to put the pile of 36 on the right so that it’s easy to grab them. Again, don’t get too worried about which ones you are adding to the pairs…

Chain sew them again 🙂

Sew two rows together

If you like, you can press at this step, but I don’t worry. This is a scrappy quilt, not going to go in any show, so if the corners don’t match perfectly I am not going to get stressed…

I do however, use pins.

Nest the seams….

And then put your pin in diagonally so that it holds both seams down:

Sew the last rows to finish the 9 patch

Pin and sew the last rows (or columns?!)….

And you will have 12 nine patches that look a bit like this:

You know what is next…

Take them to the ironing board and press!

Don’t worry about which way to press the seams, just press them whichever way they want to go…

And you’re done with Step 1!!!

Not all the posts are going to be as long as this… I just wanted to make sure if there are beginners joining that everything is clear….

I am still setting up a facebook group to replace the Stitching with Joy one… hopefully get that done by the next step which I will be posting on Friday 🙂

Till then, happy scrapping!

FOR STEP 2 GO HERE

FOR STEP 3 GO HERE

FOR STEP 4 GO HERE

FOR STEP 5 GO HERE

FOR STEP 6 GO HERE

FOR STEP 7 GO HERE

FOR STEP 8 GO HERE

FOR Block Options Go Here

FOR Border Options Go Here