How to Make a Whirlwind Flag Quilt Block

How to Make a Whirlwind Flag It’s memorial to day and so it’s kind of time for some little patriotic type of flag, so I’ve chosen one called Whirlwind Flag, and it’s kind of fun but it does present some challenges in sewing it together. Hi, this is Penny Halgren from QuiltBlockLibrary.com and QuiltBlockLibrary.tv. Here’s a picture of the block, and I'm going to sew some strip sew in the techniques to piece the patches together and then also, this is going to get some together as triangles. Which maybe kind of surprising, but I think that you’ll find it very easy, once you see how it’s all broken down. So why don’t you come join me over the cutting table and we’ll get started. This is our pattern, and these are the templates. I’ve already cut out the triangle, which is this bottom triangle here, and the little squares that are going to go in the center. So I’ve got these three pieces which represent these guys. And what I want to do is sew these red and white strips together, so that I can cut these out as one entire unit. And because it’s kind of an odd shape, I want to be able to have a template to do that. So what I'm going to do is glue these—is cut these out and glue them together and that we all have the shape that I need to use to cut that piece out. Now I've got strips cut, and what I'm going to need to do is sew these strips, sew units together so that I've got red, white, red and then another unit, and then another set of units, that’s going to be white- red-white. So I’ll just start by sewing the strip of red and white together, I’ll do two units like that. And then I’ll do—I’ll add another white strip to one and another red strip to the other. So now I have these two different strip units, sewn together and I’m going to put one to the side here, and get my little template out. This is the white-red-white one, which is right here. And I’ve got my template and I need four of them because there’s one I need at the side so one, two, three, four. Now my template is without seam allowances, so I want to make sure I want to put it on my fabric that I have the centering at. And then when I cut it, I’ll put my ruler so that I add on a quarter of an inch. And you can actually center your strip, so you could see the red strip goes on both ends of this B template. And then mark the ruler down here, and line it up then just cut it off. And then what I need to do is cut this part off, so I’ll just turn my ruler around so that this grid line is lined up with the template piece and I can just cut off the strip with a quarter of an inch seam allowance. So now I have one piece. And then what I can do is simply turn this template around and position it so that’s a quarter of an inch away from the edge, where I just cut. And line up the center again; place my ruler so that it’s a quarter of an inch away from the template. And then cut that off. That gives me two and then I can just turn this around and continue to cut them, turning the template around so you take advantage of as much as the fabrics as you have. And now that I’ve got four of those pieces cut, I’ll just take my other strip and do the same thing. So I need four of these colored combinations as well. So now I have my block and I’ve got my four center pieces here. And what I need to do is sew a red-white- red strip, to each one of these squares. Now I’ve got all the pieces laid out, and what I'm going to do is just pull a section apart here to show you how I'm going to sew this together. So what I’ll do is start by just sewing this piece to this. Now we’ve got these two sections sewn together, in each one of the parts. So just to add this bottom triangle, to each one of the sections. And now we’ve got each one of these quarters sewn together and so we’ll just attach two and then two and then we’ll be ready to sew the seam across the whole block. Now I chain sew these together so they’re still stuck together. I can open them up, you know I want to check and be sure that the pattern is still according to the design on the core block which I think it is. And then all I need to do is follow this over and these are all lined up. So then I just need to nestle the seam allowances in, so the center seam and the block, we’ll be finished. This whirlwind flag core block all finished and ready for a quilt or you could add up border on it or two or three borders and make it into a wall hanging. I hope you’ve enjoyed watching and sewing these together. It look like it would be very complicated and there are a lot of pieces but using some strip piecing techniques, you can shortcut your sewing it together and sewing it together as triangles, really is the way to go. Thanks for joining me. This is Penny Halgren, from QuiltBlockLibrary.tv and QuiltBlockLibrary.com. If you’re got already there, head on over to QuiltBlockLibrary.com and get your free download of this pattern. There are tons of other free Quilt Block patterns there as well as patterns you can pay for. They come in all different sizes, and ready for you to cut out the templates and sew your quilt together. Thanks again, peaceful piecing.