Tutorial

Happy October!

Autumn is my favorite season and this year I felt like it would never get here. In fact, it still doesn’t feel like fall here in Austin. Despite the hot weather, I’m in full Halloween mode and I’m actually done with my Halloween quilt! A couple of weeks ago I was brainstorming Halloween quilt ideas, and after glancing at my GIANT stash of orange and yellow fabric sitting on my shelves, the idea of a Candy Corn quilt seemed like a no-brainer. I googled Candy Corn quilts in various places (google, pinterest, instagram) and found SO many lovely versions. I honestly was hoping I’d find someone who could tell me exactly what size fabric pieces to cut and assemble, but none of them were exactly what I was looking for. I decided to figure out “my own” version of a Candy Corn quilt.

I love my Creative Grids rulers, so I took out my 60 degree equilateral triangle ruler and my 30 degree triangle ruler. I felt like I was in the fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The 60 degree triangle was TOO wide, the 30 degree triangle wasn’t wide enough. I wanted a candy corn shape that was JUST right. I ultimately decided a 45 degree triangle would be perfect for the candy corn shape I was hoping to achieve. I hopped online to see if Creative Grids produced a large/long 45 degree triangle ruler. Sadly, the only one they offer is their 8.5 inch long Dresden 45 degree ruler. That just wasn’t going to be long enough to get the shape I wanted. Below you’ll find detailed instructions for how I used my cutting mat to help me get the perfect 45 degree triangle.

Throw Size Scrappy Candy Corn Quilt (Approximately 69 inches long and 54 inches wide)

Materials

(27) 11″ x 3.5″ Yellow Rectangles

(27) 8.5″ x 6.25″ Orange Rectangles

(27) 4.25″ x 4.25″ White Squares

2 yards of fabric for between the pieced candy corns (will refer to these as your “solid” triangles) I used the fabulous Cotton + Steel Mint Mummies print.

Instructions

Step 1: First you’ll want to mark the center of both sides of each candy corn piece. Some people mark a small line on either end of the rectangle, I prefer to iron my pieces in half because it is quick and easy. I’ve used a “pencil mark” on the images below so that you can easily follow along.

Step 2: Line up the center of your yellow piece and the center of your orange piece, right sides together. Sew 1/4 inch down the edge. Do the same with your white piece along the other side of your orange piece. It doesn’t matter which way you iron your seams. What is important is that you matchup the centers of your pieces. Your end unit should be 13″ from top to bottom.

Step 3: Align your ruler starting at the bottom center of your white piece, all the way up to the top right corner of your yellow piece. Cut along this edge to produce one side of your triangle.

Step 4: Here is where your cutting mat enters the picture. First let’s take a look at the way a cutting mat is setup. They may differ based on manufacturer, but the idea is the same. I use a Fiskars Self-Healing 24 x 36 cutting mat. See image below for how the different angles are broken down. We will be using the 45 degree angle.

First, flip your candy corn so that the wrong side is facing you. Line the straight edge you just cut up along the 45 degree angle line, making sure the center of your white piece ends up along one of your cutting mats grid lines, as seen below.

Take your ruler and line it up along the gridline where the white center is. Cut along the edge. You are almost done with your candy corn unit!

Step 5: I didn’t want my candy corn pieces to have pointy tips, so I trimmed the point off of the pieces. Line the yellow edge of your candy corn piece up along the side of your cutting mat. Trim at the 12 inch mark.

Step 6: You will cut your solid triangles the same way you trimmed down your candy corn pieces. First, take your fabric and cut it into large strips that are 13″ x Width of Fabric (wof). You can get 6 solid triangle units from ever 13″ x wof large strip. Since you need (27) solid triangles for this size quilt, you will need (5) 13″x wof large strips.

I “cheat” on the first step. I take an untrimmed candy corn unit, lay it on top of my fabric, and then I use my ruler to cut the first 45 degree line.

Next, flip your fabric and line it up the same way you did in Step 4 for the candy corn pieces. Keep flipping your fabric until you’ve cut out 6 triangles. Trim the pointy ends off like you did in Step 5.

Step 7: Arrange your candy corns and sew together. I think this quilt could also be really fun with other colors, as seen below. I’m in love with the mummy print, so it was a natural choice for me. Others might prefer something more traditional with black, grey, purple or lime green.

Okey Dokey, here is my first attempt at a tutorial…feedback encouraged! Hopefully at least some of this makes sense. 🙂

I’m going to explain the ridiculous way I figured out how to do the gradient water/waves quilt. It is entirely possible there is a better way to do this, but this way worked for me, so hopefully it works for you!

First let’s take a look at the pattern repeat. The quilt is made up of two rows that repeat as many times as you’d like them to. You can use a variety of colors, but for this version I chose a six color version, seen below.

Here is a better look at how the blocks are pieced together to make up the rows:

As you can see above, there are 2 rows of 6 blocks each. All of those blocks will be made via strip piecing. Each strip set will produce 4 blocks, which is enough for a lap size throw in the end if you do 6 blocks across. To make the quilt shown in this tutorial you end up needing 12 strip sets to produce the 12 blocks above.

Now it is time to figure out the pesky colors and how many strips of each color you need. First, number your chosen colors (I literally pinned a piece of paper with a written number to each color fabric). Next, using the pattern repeat diagram and the colors chosen, number the colors and where they occur in your diagram, like below.

Now go through and count the number of times each color appears in the strips (ie; how many times the number 1 appears in the diagram, etc), and presto, the number of strips you need of each color! Write this down by your chosen colors and get to work cutting out your strips. Again, I kept the color number pinned to each stack of strips so I wouldn’t get confused, especially if you are using similar colors!

I cut my strips 2.25 inches so that I could end up getting 4 blocks per strip set. You can use 2.5 inches, but you only end up getting 3 blocks per strip set with a bunch of leftover fabric.

After you’ve sewn your strips together it is time to cut them down to size. If you used a scant 1/4 inch as your seam allowance you’ll end up with your strip set being 9.25″ from top to bottom, and 42-44″ in length. Measure and cut down to 9.25″ squares.

I next laid out my blocks according to the diagram and the repeat pattern. The lap size quilt is made up of 4 sets of the repeating pattern. See below:

Now, piece together your columns:

After you are done with your columns, sew them together and you should end up with something like this:

I went ahead and put together a diagram you can print and color in, since everyone doesn’t have the luxury of Adobe Illustrator. Works the same way, just color, number, and sew! The diagram includes more rows and columns than the tutorial quilt, just in case you want to try more colors.

If you end up making one, I’d love for you to comment on this post with a link to your blog post about it! Happy sewing everyone! Here is the blue version I have yet to quilt (Blogged here):