Making a Disappearing Hourglass 2 Quilt Block...........

This tutorial was orginally done by Jenny Doan for The Missouri Quilt Company. If you require further instruction or want to see Jenny's video you can go to their website and look under their tutorials to see Jenny in action.

So to begin you will need to cut 2 -10 inch blocks of fabric. Your fabric choices should be 1 of a light colored fabric and 1 a darker color. The more contrast the fabrics have with each other the better and more vivid the pattern in this block turns out.

Once you have your 2 squares cut you will sew them right sides together with a 1/4 inch seam allowance all of the way around the entire block. Once you have done that the next step it to cut the block corner to corner on the diagonal in both directions.

Once you have made these cuts press the seams while they are still closed to set your seams. Once you have done that open them up and you will see that you have 4 HSTs (half square triangles). Now press your seams to the darker side of the block. Be careful not to stretch your block by moving your iron all about. Just press.

The next step is to take your 4 small blocks you have just created and put them together to form an hourglass block. It should look like this.

Now to make our next cuts. This block will now measure 12 3/4 inches. We need to divide the block into 3 equal portions. 12 3/4 inched divided by 3 is 4 1/4 inches. That is the size that we require all of our portions to be. If you divide 41/4 inches by 2 you get 2 1/8 inches. If we cut our block 2 1/8 inches on both sides of the center of our block we will get 3 equal portions that measure 4 1/4 inches. Once you make those two cuts, go to either the left or the right side of your block and make the same exact cuts DO NOT pick up your block and move it. This is an excellent time to use a rotating cutting mat if you have one. If not, it is something you should purchase. It will become one of your favorite quilting tools. Your cuts should look like this:

You will now end up with 9 equal blocks. So now, rotate your four corner blocks to the inside. then take your center block and rotate it one half turn.

Your block should now look like this:

Beautiful! And very easy to make. Sew your squares toether in rows making sure to press those seams to set and then press open. Make sure that the seams you make while sewing your squares together alternate directions on your rows so that when your rows are sewed together they nestle and give you the best possible chance of lining up your seams and your square lies as flat as possible. And that is it! Congratulations, you have made your 1st Disappearing Hourglass 2 Quilt Block.

Have a great sewing day!