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Specialty cuts of coordinated fabrics wrapped up in a bundle are a very common and convenient way to test out a new fabric line. I think of these bundles as a gift of potential. But that potential can be elusive if you're hesitant to untie that ribbon and create something special. Please welcome Maria DeGroot, who is a sewing and quilting teacher specializing in making quilt projects from fabric bundles. Welcome to Sewing With Nancy, Maria. Thank you, Nancy. It's really a pleasure to be here. When I get ready to do club every month, I look at these stacks of precut fabrics and try to come up with a way to use them that are fun and easy for the student to do, and they can accomplish a project in no time. Bundles of 5" squares are an ideal starting point for a quilt. Most of the fabrics featured in this project were precut. You don't need to make decisions on which fabrics go together. Plus, most of the cutting work is complete. "Precut Fabrics for Speedy Projects," that's what's coming up next on Sewing With Nancy.

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And the 5", which we're going to start off with, 5" beautiful coordinates of fabric, so you don't have to buy a lot of fabric. You just buy one package. 5" stackers, charm packs. That's not a food name, but "charms" is pretty common. Yes, yes. And then this is a 10" stack. Also known as a "layer cake." - 10" stackers. You have it-- you can find such a variety of names, but the important part is 5", 10" squares, and then... 2 1/2" strips. There are other sizes that you can work with, but these are the ones we're going to work with right now. And the quilt behind us was made with these 5" strips, and let's take a look at what the block looks like, because you're starting off with 5 inches. But here's really what a block is, right here. And you're thinking, "Oh, my goodness. How am I ever gonna make that?" But, Maria, making it is not that difficult. No. You start with a simple nine-patch. And we have the charms in the corners, some contrasting fabric in the middle, and a light fabric in-- around the middle, and we'll have to buy a little extra yardage, of course, but this equals what you see behind me in this patch. This is exactly what happens, so it's kind of-- kind of interesting. Very fun. So as we mentioned, you need the dark fabric and the light fabric to go with this. This is a lap-size quilt, a great quilt for perhaps-- we call them tummy time quilts for little kids. Half a yard... - Of the dark. Mm-hmm. And then about a yard and a half of a light color. Yep. So we've cut these, also, in 5" squares, and here's some of the-- Let's just start with the middle. What do you think? I like to put that dark color in the center... Mm-hmm. And then put the charms in the corners. Or squares. Whatever you want to call them. And I'll fill in the blanks. - There you go. And four of these 5" cuts of the lighter fabric. Whoop. Now, when putting together a block, a really pretty common technique is to put right sides together, column two onto column one, and take those to the sewing machine, and chain-stitch along the right side with a 1/4" seam allowance. And here you can see that we're doing that chain-stitching from one block to another to the third. And then when you finish that technique, you add column three... Onto what you've already sewn. And you get, when you're done-- I'll just gather these loose pieces up, but you'll see you get a honeycomb shape. Again, very common quilting practice. Pressing is next, Maria. Right, uh, for this block, I chose to press everything towards the colors. So you'd pressed the seam allowances toward the colors of the fabric, or the blocks. Correct. So on the top and bottom, it's pressed-- seam allowances are pressing out. Out. - And middle row... And in the middle, pressing in. It makes that convenient so that when you meet right sides together, you have your seam allowances nesting, so that-- let me get this together-- if we get a tight shot of that, you can see that one seam allowance is going in one direction and the top one going in the other. And then you sew the rows. Absolutely. So basic quilting technique, but if you've never quilted before, this is a great place to start. And then you have your block. And here's-- you'll be making many nine-patch blocks. Yep, from that stack of 40, you actually can get ten blocks, because I used four of them in each block. Ten blocks, stack of 40, but now... you just keep cutting. Yep. So the cutting technique is next, and you can share how that's done. I'm gonna cut the block down the middle and across the middle to make smaller squares to work with to get that patchwork shape up there. So it should be 4 1/2" in between there, so I can line my ruler up. Cut straight up and down. And across. And make sure you close your blade so you don't accidentally cut yourself. And here's my four new parts. And you can see how that happened, but now you're gonna do a little scrambling, 'cause we call this the Charm Pack Scrambler. Right, and you can choose any layout that you want. I happen to like when the accent is kissing in the corners there, so to speak, so I just took and turned two of the corners just like that. And there's your block. - Mm-hmm. So this needs to be chained together, so we would meet column two onto column one. Yep. And chain-stitch along that seam so that you don't have to cut the threads between the blocks. And then just cut the rows-- not cut the rows. That would be the wrong thing. - Sew them. Sew the rows. - We're gonna sew them now. So you can see that you have the dark fabrics kissing each other, and ready to add it to the next block. As we look at the quilt behind us, you'll see the blocks, again, here, how the kissing blocks always meet together. It's scrambled nine-patches, scrambled 5" charm pack, that's really quite enchanting. And fun. Fun to put together and easy. Doesn't matter how you set up those nine-patches originally because you're gonna cut them into these units, and you can put them wherever you want to on the quilt. Nice. - Yeah. It's amazing how cutting a basic nine-patch block into four sections and then shuffling the components can change the design of a quilt block. Now expand that concept, making a Charm Pack Double Scramble block. It's a super-sized block that looks complicated but that is easily created by thinking outside the box. Using these packages of fabric, making interesting projects, speedy projects is what this program's all about, Maria, and you've done a great job of it. To look at the block itself, let's just put the window up to show the Double Scramble block. It looks--this is a sample from our last quilt. It has some of the same elements, but then it has a double log on each side, a double square in the corner. And many options for layouts. - Correct. So you can see the four different blocks coming together in the corner, but I really like the block next to you. I do too. And it's kind of a little bit like an Irish chain but different sized blocks, and it's done in the same concept, so just, as I mentioned, think outside that box. And we'll start with a nine-patch. So this time, we took and-- instead of putting a dark square in the middle, we used prints in all of the five areas. So from the pack of fabric. - Yep. And then you're going to do the same cutting, but we also need to purchase some extra yardage. Yep, we're gonna have a light background again, but then you chose this print to use for the new center of our new nine-patch. So if you have any of that fabric, that same print in your fabric bundle, cast it aside and use it for another project. So after you've made blocks, such as this, then you do the same cutting-- north-south, east-west-- and here we go. We have that already cut. And we'll do some separating. If you pull on that one... Okay. And the block is-- the measurement of the block is important, what--what size you have here. So let's see. - Let's see what it is. I've got a 7" block here. - Mm-hmm. That's a good thing, because we cut the blocks 7", right? We did. We did. So if we put our print in the middle again... And this is the one that you bought the yardage for. Yes. And then our light in the empty spaces. Mm-hmm. - There is our new nine-patch. And you sew all these together. Mm-hmm. And we have slightly different color fabric here, but you'd use the same color fabric. We did this so you could see where it's been sewn together. And then, presto, we have a sample already made, so we're just going to-- using that same sewing technique that we looked at earlier. And here we have that super-sized block. So it's now measuring 20". I happen to know that. So we're gonna cut this in half, north-south, east-west. And... ta-da. Let's start scrambling, because now you have that double look. Yeah. - So I'll lay one here. And how quickly such an interesting block is created. It's really quite phenomenal. And you just lay out-- there's more than one option here to create this block, so you can see the various looks that we're achieving. So have fun laying it out in big 10" blocks, and you can create that look. We have one more variation of working with a 5" square to share with you, and we just have the blocks to share, and it's a 9" that has a frame around it. And here you can see the finished-looking block. And again, we're gonna start off with the nine-patch block. And, Maria, on your cutting table, you're ready to do some cutting. I am; I'm going to take 2 1/2" off of two opposite sides. So 2 1/2" works almost all the time for this. Yep. You could probably pick whatever dimension you wanted to do, but this works out really well. So cut the sides first, and then after cutting the sides, cut the top and the lower edge. Correct. All righty. And one more cut. I'll flip them around so it matches. -

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Keep cutting, and we're just about ready to show you the magic. And here, you put it back in the window that you cut out, and now we're gonna swap middles. Trade you. - Okay. Whoop-- I'm gonna kind of move mine around a little bit. Do you need to move yours? - I am too. So we don't have matching fabric. And as you might guess, we're going to stitch the shorter logs to the sides. Uh-huh. And then the longer logs will be the last one. But because you have the seam allowance here, you're gonna end up with having to do some trimming. So, Maria, on this block, we would have trimmed the edges off to square it. Right. And let's show our audience some of the finished blocks. They're really quite attractive. And we have found that you could separate them with sashing. You could sew them together as blocks. But it gives you another variation and a great way of using those 5" squares of fabric to make a speedy project. Stitch four 5" blocks together into a traditional arrangement. Then see what possibilities await you. A simple cut from point to point and the addition of a strip of fabric turns what was once a basic four-patch block into the Four's the Charm block. We're again working with the 5" squares of fabric, and, Marie, you've chosen a really fun, kind of traditional print. Kind of a vintage, old-fashioned-looking... So I'm going to create a simple four-patch block. Just like that. Right sides together. Just stitch them. And you can feed them in one right after the other. And there's your finished block. We're not doing a lot of sewing today because it's a basic 1/4" seam, but when we look at the quilt behind us, you can see that that block changes quite a bit. So it has, as we mentioned, a strip down the center of it, and when we take that away... There it is. You see how the lattice that's added gives great potential of design opportunities. And it breaks up those simple squares... Mm-hmm. And gives a lot of fun angles to look at. Depending upon what fabric pack you choose, you'd get a totally different look. This is a 1930s vintage. - Right. It's really sweet and nice. And to add the strip, you'd have to do some cutting. A little bit, yeah. So if I line this up on the board... You can use the lines that are on your cutting board to make sure you're going from point to point. Lay that ruler right on there. And cut. - And there we go. And you don't have to keep the halves together. Nope. You're gonna mix up all of the half-square triangles that are there. And we've cut 2" crosswise strips of fabric. And you wouldn't have to use 2". You can use 1". You can use 3". It's just going to expand the size of your block. And fold them in half-- no, not in half, but in thirds, approximately. That's all you need. And then cut. Because these become the strips, and then here you are. So I'm going to take and lay my triangle on a strip here. And you want to make sure you've got some clearance on either side, because once this is sewn on and you trim, you're gonna trim out into that blue strip a little bit, so you want to be careful with that. So just the traditional 1/4" seam allowance from centering-- approximately centering that half-square triangle on the strip, and then comes the second half. The other half. So I'm going to take the one I've already sewn, and I'm gonna fold it in half, matching the triangle, not the ends of my strips, in case those aren't even. Sure. And give it a little finger-press, open it up, and I'll put a pin in there. And you can do the same thing with your other half. It should be right on the sewn joint there but just to be sure... Yeah, just in case. Right. So I'm going to put that there. The other thing I'm going to take a look at is how much of a perimeter I have here. I want it to be even. If I have it too far to one side or the other, you're going to end up with a rectangle instead of a square. Sure, and here you can see that now the next step is just to stitch that second half-square triangle to the other side of the center strip. And when you're finished stripping-- stripping? No. Sewing the strip. -

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Let me correct that. Then you can press the seam allowances toward the center strip. Yes. - And trim. And for this, I like a square ruler... Sure. That has the diagonal line down the middle there. And I can line my block back up onto the board. And if it's square square, we're all good. Sure. Now, that line is running right down the middle. I'm checking on either side of it that I've got an even spot there. It's a little easier to trim when you're not on an angle, right? It is much easier. Yes. While Maria is finishing cutting that, I'm just gonna start to lay out the center of the block with four other blocks. And you can add your block while you're at it, Maria, and we can see how this turns into-- oop-oop. And you can kind of-- if you don't like two pinks together, you can do some rearrangement. Flip them around. And you can see how you can then build upon that to get that diagonal look. And we'll just finish by looking at this quilt once more. And this is-- here are four blocks that we put together to create the center, and then following the diagonal to the right, following the diagonal to the left, you can see how expanded upon this Four's the Charm block that can be made with a simple pack of fabric, in addition, one accent fabric. Have you ever photographed your finished quilt projects to show off your sewing skills or to share those images on social media? If you're like me, you probably wish that those images were better composed, or you had a little sharper look to them. At the Quilt Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, I had the opportunity to interview an expert on how to take better quilt photos. I know you'll appreciate her tips just as I did. I would imagine many of you have taken pictures of your quilt projects. But how many of you wish you had a little extra insight on how to do it properly? Well, with me today is Meg Cox. Meg Cox is a quilt journalist and has great dos and don'ts for taking pictures of quilts. Welcome to Sewing With Nancy, Meg. Thanks, Nancy. Nice to be here. Now, you have many guidelines on talking about quilts, and there's the informal quilt and the formal quilt portrait. Right, well, there are so many reasons why we want to be able to take good pictures of our quilts. We want to share them on social media. We want to share them with our friends. We want to maybe make a pattern. We want to preserve, you know, images of the things that we've made. To document it. 'Cause we give away so many of our quilts. But the thing to know is that there's two different basic kinds. There's an informal quilt portrait that you would take for social media or just to document or whatever, and that, you don't have to have every inch showing. You don't have to have it perfectly straight. You can have it-- sort of style the shot and have it over-- draped over a chair or have somebody sitting on it, or you want to have a-- tell a little story with it. But a formal quilt portrait is, if you were entering a contest, you have to, you know, have a really good picture. To sell it. - Yes, you have to-- And if you put all your heart and soul and creative juice into that quilt, you want somebody to see it instantly. Right. So that formal quilt portrait has to show every inch of the quilt. It has to be absolutely straight. Square. - It has to be-- The colors have to be true. You don't want to have shadows or--or bars of light or anything like that. And so, how do you-- how do you do that? Mm-hmm, so first, your equipment. Right, well, part of it is your equipment. And I like to tell people that, although for, you know, the informal shots, it's great to use your cell phone, this is one of the best tools a quilter ever had. Sure. - For lots of reasons. But, you know, you can get-- there's a really good reason-- you do not have to get a $600, $1,000 DSLR camera. You can get a point-and-shoot digital camera like this. Costs a lot less than an expensive smartphone, as it turns out. Yes, right. For less than $300, you can get one that is gonna take great pictures and give you a lot more control... Okay. - Over the image. So some hints? - Some hints. So, um, if you're gonna take that formal quilt picture, either put it on your design wall or get some kind of a rack, and do not have busy stuff going on behind. Sure. Just have a solid color or, you know, just white or black or something. And then you want to have lighting that really gives an even light across the quilt. And the most important thing is, you want to shoot right smack...

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In the middle. - Mm-hmm. It's best to have a tripod, and those are not expensive, so you don't have camera shake, and you shoot right in the middle, and then all the corners will be squared, and you'll have this nice image. Now, there's one great website that I have found that is perfect for quilters, and I'd just like to share it. It's called Shoot That Quilt! -

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It's a website put together by a photographer and a website designer, and that will give you ideas about where to find the right lights, how to do a really inexpensive setup with the lights, and so forth, lots of good advice. Now, Meg, there are some befores and afters, goods and bads of-- in closing, give us some hints of how people have-- how you've improved. Right, okay, well, this isn't a picture. This is actually from a blog. Amy Smart is her name-- Diary of a Quilter. And she shared with me some of her early bad shots, and you can see, they're in direct sunlight, so--you can see the top of her head. The color's washed-- you don't even know if that's a good quilt, right? Right. - Because it's so washed out. And here's the better one. - And here's the better one. She has gotten to the point now where she does not shoot in the bright light. She doesn't put the quilt smack in the middle. She makes an interesting setting. She has got a digital camera, so she's not just using her phone here. So she has more light. She has more control. She's paying attention to the composition of the picture, and it's night and day. Anybody can do that. Well, Meg, thanks. These are some great tips, and I know I need some tips on doing this, so thanks for sharing with us, and maybe you'll be back again soon sometime. I would love it. Thank you. Thank you. - Thanks a lot. Special thanks to Meg Cox for sharing her practical advice on photographing quilts. Remember that you can re-watch this episode of Sewing With Nancy, plus several seasons of programs online at NancyZieman.com. While you're there, join the community of fellow sewing and quilting enthusiasts by joining my Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter sites. Next time on Sewing With Nancy, be inspired to make other quilt projects with precut bundles. Thanks for joining me. Bye for now.

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Precut fabrics are so easy to collect and admire. Nancy and her guest, quilting professional Maria DeGroot, transform fat quarters, jelly rolls, charm packs, and more into a variety of beautiful quilted items. "The Precut Fabrics for Speedy Projects" book is $14.99 plus shipping and handling. To order, ca ll 800-336-8373 or visit our website at sewingwithnancy.com/3101. Order item number BK3101, "Precut Fabrics for Speedy Projects." Credit card orders only. Visit Nancy's website at NancyZieman.com to see additional episodes, Nancy's blog, and more. Sewing With Nancy, TV's longest-airing sewing and quilting program with Nancy Zieman,

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Baby Lock, Madeira threads, Koala Studios, Clover, Fuller Brush Vacuums, Amazing Designs and Klass Needles. Closed captioning funding provided by Riley Blake Designs. Sewing With Nancy is a co-production of Nancy Zieman Productions and Wisconsin Public Television.