How to Use Creative Grids Alaska Ruler to Make an Alaska Quilt Block

Video Transcript:

thank you hi it's Jen and Tammy here with a really special patriotic project yes this gorgeous table runner is made with the Colors of Courage collection from Wilmington it's one of that more it almost reminds me when I look at these Fabrics it's more classic it is classic you got the Liberty Bell it's it's beautiful very much 1776. absolutely um and so it's made with the Alaska ruler here this is a Creator grid tool editor sitar yes was the designer on this particular notion we love to unpack these rulers because sometimes people like I don't know that I can't follow the instructions maybe it's difficult to unpack I will say this is the reason you're here with me is sure you want to explain this to me and some tools are very intuitive with just a little bit of instruction right I would say this one stay with us in this video to really unpack this video there were some things I didn't think were intuitive correct but you're gonna walk us through it I'm gonna walk you through it and show us how to make these beautiful Alaska blocks I know those different options but we made the same block again and again yes but do notice how we have blue here and blue on that one but in the middle it's red we did a little bit of a change a little bit so Tammy take us away show us what we need to know about the Alaska ruler so that we can make this quilt beautiful and have this on our own table yes okay I love that and there's also an Alaska quilts I have seen all over social oh my gosh they're amazing they are definitely on my list of to do I am making one of those quilts yeah they're incredible but I wanted to master the ruler first and this is the perfect project to do that it's small enough you shouldn't feel intimidated this is perfect okay okay all right all right so we have our Alaska ruler odd shape right okay so the first thing we're going to do is we're going to cut our strips and I have cut pre-cut strips ahead of time all right so they do have very good directions this is creative grids this is right off their website yes all your directions are right here yep I'm going to go through yes and you will get this inside of course your ruler like they're very good about doing we just got a bigger version for us to see and you know what else is cool about that if you ever lose this not that I've ever done that no no not that we've ever done that you can go to Career grid USA website type in the ruler you want Alaska and you're able to get these instructions again so right there yes so don't feel like yeah once it's right the ruler is garbage it's right so I wanted to put that in there just because I know this has happened to me and I'm like now what do I have to buy another tool you do not okay all right so today we are making a creative grids Alaska block this is a 12 inch unfinished block making an 11 and a half inch finish block so we are going to start with an a block which is a diamond lock and we need a two and three quarter inch red strip and Jen you have that okay correct all right so I have my strip is folded wrong sides together first thing I'm going to do is just simply put a 60 degree angle on the other side of it oh that's correct so we're just simply going to put an angle on the other side of it like just to kind of get it started correct to get it going that's correct all right and I'm going to cut the little tip off of that diamond I'll be The Keeper of the Scrapbook the scraps Perfect all right we're going to turn it over all right so now intuitively when I put this on here I want to measure two and three quarters inches right so if I were to measure using these markings here it only comes to two and a quarter if I measure these markings across here it comes to two and a quarter okay and you're thinking that's not right right right that's divided that through me two and three quarters right okay so two and three quarters we're not using the straight lines on the side of the stroller we're using the diagonal lines right here okay so this too that three this is two and this is the three quarter that's correct so three quarters is this X and this x two and three quarters all right wow okay so that's the part that confused me yeah I know it's very confusing okay so I line this up so my x's are right along my fabric okay and we're gonna go ahead and cut a diamond yeah we can get that threaded out for you okay so now I have a diamond this is two and three quarters inches two and three quarters Diamond okay all right okay so our next shape that we need to cut is a half diamond and a half diamond is cut from strip it this one here perfect okay Yep this is our half diamond all right so now I'm going to turn my ruler this direction and I have a three and a half inch strip here now I'm using the center numbers okay you see how that goes right to the right half right I see okay this one is better at being intuitive yes but it's been this around this spinning mat is I love the spinning mat I like just not having to move the fabric I don't want to move the cut doesn't work for size have it right where I want it I don't want to move it yep okay all right so now I have a diamond we'll lay that out and I have a half diamond and I have another half Diamond just like that okay okay I'm making our block all right the next piece we need I'll let you have that is our large triangle that goes on the end of this okay perfect so for this I have a four and a half inch strip of fabric here okay so I'm going to cut a d block now now I'm going to use this end of the ruler okay so I'm going to line this up now I don't know if this is exactly straight or not Let's Straighten this Edge a little bit okay precise is good uh precise is pretty interesting this is really important yes that's correct so this is is that's right and this is why you're you know we're seeing you push harder than normal get the fresh blade right that's what yes hey this might be an opportunity I'm going to take this opportunity one of the things I love about this tool this is not expected in the old days when we all bought our first rotary cutters do you remember how we had to unscrew this you have to watch this yeah pop it open it's out the other thing I use for these is I mark on my blade what's used and I keep it in here exactly exactly I have taken out the trash before have a blade thrown away and then it cut me right across the leg oh so there's two in here so you're just gonna slide that across okay you get your plate thank you I'll take that one so I'm just going to set it right back on here absolutely right on here like that and click that right back into place yep and that's all there is to it and I would mark this blade as used and put it and I'd put it in here and close the lid so for now I'm just going to put it aside perfect we will do that wasn't expecting to do that but this is going to make your life easier I appreciate that and that's right when we start when we're pushing this hard just done go okay all right so my ruler is lined up on four and a half and four and a half this end works just like a regular square root okay right so I'm going to cut a square oh that is so much better thank you so much you only notice how dull they are once you once you change it it's like wow that's amazing yep all right now I'm just going to turn my ruler sideways I'm going to line this up corner to corner and I'm going to cut this in half so there's no need to go find a square ruler another ruler anything else this tool will cut a hundred percent of the blocks that you need to make I like that I like that I like that I like that okay now we have our triangles that go on the top just like that wow okay okay that is how we cut our blocks now let's talk about soy blocks because now a lot of you are looking at me like yeah okay you can cut it but can you sew it yes right that's a whole different matter sure all right I'll give that to you all right so the first thing that we want to do let's move these down is we want to sew our half diamonds to our Diamond okay all right again this is not intuitive because when I first started doing this I'm like well I'm going to line this up and wait a minute where am I supposed to be this doesn't fit yeah okay yep so eyeliness set I have the the very tip of this white is going to go right in the corner of the red like this okay do you see that I do boy that's depending time right there oh yeah I'm gonna pin that for sure okay so I don't need a lot of pins I just need enough just to hang on to it make sure it's going to stay where it is okay and I pin well out on my seam allowance yeah so I can start and go and not have to stop and take that pin exactly okay so I'm going to go to the machine and I'm going to go ahead and saw that okay I'm going to do this warming up would you like to sew it I sure can no I'll sew it on okay that was a joke I'm happy too sure uh all right now you get to press so let's press that open please okay and warm up the scene yep so pressing open all right let's do that I can imagine with all of the Confluence of these seams that's the reason for pressing open yes exactly okay when I have diamonds like this I always press them open and I noticed you're sewing with the gray orophil it's part of our Carrera set I love that the white gray black yes the neutral set I love that if you're piecing that's all you need it is all you need all these wonderful colors are not we're not they're not really meant for piece they're not for piecing they're for applicants yes yes okay so now you can see how this matched here beautifully right look at that okay good I'm gonna do exactly the same thing on the other side okay all right so we line this up again that tip is there right to there and I'm going to pin it in place and I'm gonna go sew that fantastic okay foreign again we're going to press that open this I can do this thread for you there you go okay these types of collections that are that more there's a lot of cute patriotic you know with the the Gnomes and and all that but sometimes that kind of looks classic classic one yes yes oh beautiful all right now we're going to take our ruler back okay do you want the spinning mat or no I don't need a spinning mat okay now we're going to use the ruler and we are going to trim this block because I need to trim this seam to a quarter of an inch all right let's look at one that I already did right here so you can see it's perfectly trimmed to exactly a quarter of an inch so when you go to sew these together points are perfect points are perfect right here's this one this is what I'm after right now right okay goal every time all right so we're going to turn our ruler around this all right so now I'm lining up a straight line right here and I'm lining up my quarter inch I see that so you've got some different layers of confirmation yes that's correct so I have the bottom lined up I have the top lined up so now what I'm looking at is how much am I going to trim off here if you're trimming off a large amount just stop right there don't do it you're doing it wrong okay okay we lined it up wrong that's correct so this was positioned correct so you should trim up no more than this this is just little tiny scraps that I'm trimming off if you're trimming off giant pieces oh stop look for this yeah find the seam ripper and do it again yeah because that's not right okay so then we're just going to add this triangle onto here right and we've done that here and pressed it up this is the one time that I pressed up right and I can see wanting to sew on this side as much as we want to sew on the side no I turned it over that's correct so you can keep your eye on that location on the point okay that's correct you taught me that I touched they taught me that a long time ago points up yeah you can see them yeah keep keep track of those things keep your eye on them okay all right now I'm gonna trim this little dog ear off again I am using the ruler to do this and it does tell you how to do this but I want you to see how it lines up it all lines up and I'm just going to trim and I'm going to trim that did a little itty bitty thing so it looks a little funny on this end okay that's okay I'm glad hey okay all right okay now let's talk about how we join two together right okay but once you make a bunch of diamonds and put just some sugars have this now the blue ones have the red now let's talk about putting these together now I've made Diamond quilts where you have to offset or see us oh it's very stressful actually duplicated it's stressful because you're trying to visualize where they will be after they're sewn together and you can be off oh and if they're off they look horrible because they don't line up right and it just gets worse as you add more rows this is way simpler than that good which you're happy to hear right I know we're happy to hear way happy to hear this part okay so I have both of these seams are pressed open I am simply going to put them together of course just like this and this should line up here too it will in a second right now I'm just concerned about these two right here and when I get them where I want them ah definitely gonna put a pin in that so that's your first lineup and then right here this is this is easy yeah sad this is easy I mean this will just fall into place just like this right right this is easy these also are the fine Patrick pins these are not just regular Patchwork pins I know a lot of people like the dritz pins or something like that which are more they're heftier pictures these are the extra fine even these are the extra fine pens yeah the reason I use extra fine pins is I don't want to disturb that that's right right here you just need to hang on to it right and I'll be the first to admit that I am the biggest I I I am such a sucker for cute pens cute pins yeah but in the end you know like this thick gauge and I actually go to use them and the fabric is disturbing or snagging yes leave the cute pins in your favorite pin code sure but don't actually that's right don't actually use that that's right that's good advice that's very good I'm so gullible with Cupid that's good advice all right so now we're gonna go sew from here quarter inch all the way to the end okay okay let's see how we did this is always the test right it's like did I nail it did I not what happened let's take a look oh that's perfect that's exactly what I want to look like so I want you now to press this open okay and you can see you have nailed it when you have a perfect little V right here you see that I love that wow I love it this I can do all right now we've made a couple of these ahead of time okay so that I can show you how to put a half block together okay nice there you are Miss Tammy beautiful all right you can see now I have a quarter inch here to this point yes so yes this did look odd it's fine quarter inch here oh I didn't trim this dog ear okay Jen I missed that oh it's okay it's okay we're here now we're gonna trim rub right now didn't notice I missed that until I went to go somewhere and it's like oh that's what's supposed to be there there we go all right now this is a half block and then we have our other half block wow I would not have expected the block to assemble that way it's odd but I guess when you think about it it kind of has to it has to right it has to exactly okay so as before we just line these seams up perfectly as close as we can I'm also going to Nest a seam here look at that yes so that everybody lines up uh this is why I love using a ruler all my pieces are precisely cut yes they all go together right I love this okay this is good wow you do want to be careful these are biased edges sizing sizing sizing and I should I should have mentioned that just do it in the beginning always when you're ironing your fabric sizes before you're cutting before you're cutting don't even think about doing any strips that's right yeah okay Miss Jen again we're going to press the seam open okay I can do this okay this is starting to look a lot like this one I hope so I hope there's just like that actually I really hope that's what we're going for here it's so funny how it's kind of on a diagonal but it makes sense I know now that I'm kind of seeing this I see now why these seams are pressed open that just that bulk would be it'd be very you seems come together in the center you have to have them pressed open or it's not you're just going to have a great big lump in the middle right I see your quilter is going to be calling you not happy okay let me be careful and I can see this bias sizing very important very much should have mentioned we're not using steam when we're pressing this out either no no Steam on that Steam and biased are not friends not friends okay we have two half blocks together all right and just same as before we're just gonna Nest okay that's very logical right there Yep this is probably the only logical part of this whole block right okay so now I'm just going to be really careful when I come to these edges and I'm gonna pin this like this I might as well put a pin there's on yeah pinning right yeah I would leave it but I'll go ahead and pin it nice and while she's pinning sizing this is something you that actually Tammy introduced me to I had not really used sizing I did I'd done it to press my Airline uniforms oh yeah but never really and it's nice when you know a bias is coming you're going to go sell that together um it's nice to know that when you've got the the sizing it just helps stabilize those bias cuts a little bit more be sure to use it for you iron and before you cut before you cut your strips yep all right Miss Jen we have a block if you want to give that a final press on the press that open for me gosh this is so pretty Tammy I love that block so people will make two do you like that yep correct and then one with red triangles and yes they're just adjusting where they're putting their yeah they're dying two of these yes one of those we have our sashing our inner border I see we've got the two and a half by twenty four and a half I love being able to use a ruler that is my border and my binding strip your binding yes we do two and a half inch binding here yep we like that what do we do and this is a great one obviously to maybe uh do any top quilting on your home machine yeah we certainly use our clover uh Wonder clips for our binding I used to pin those and I used to give them both I needs much better with clothes so you can see the Alaska ruler is a more advanced project if you're brand new to quilting hey you know what get some scrap fabric even if you're going to pick up the kit practice on that first practice we did a lot of Team ripping figuring this one out we did um but as you can see it is worth your your it's worth it it's worth the University of time it's beautiful yes so thank you Tammy I know I I could I would have not have done nearly as good of a job so we appreciate you giving us your time your time and Tammy or I or maybe that both of us will be seeing you soon on another shabby video [Music] thank you