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Secondary Design for a Star

A big Thank You to Sue Edberg for her beautiful quilts. I left her post up for a few extra days because her quilts are just so beautiful.

How is everybody doing with their QOV projects? I’d love to hear progress and even see some pictures. I’ll show pictures of my progress tomorrow.

And I’ve been thinking about what to do next for star blocks that are simple, but different. I played around a bit in EQ7 and came up with this variation on the Ohio Star. It is inspired by the 54-40 Fight Block which has four patches on all four corners.

To make a 12 inch block, each finished four patch unit would measure 4 inches. The star points are four inch finished quarter square triangle units, and the center square is a 4 inch square. It really is pretty simple when you put it together with simple sashing and cornerstones. And the four patch blocks create a very pretty secondary pattern within this quilt.

 

 

  
 

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Guest Blogger: Sue Edberg and her beautiful Star Quilts

It’s exciting to have Sue Edberg as a guest blogger today. You may know her as “Sue in Scottsdale”. Sue is sharing some of her quilts made with this beautiful star block. Sue grew up in Rhode Island and lived and taught college in Boston before moving to Scottsdale in 1975 where she lives with her husband and four dogs. 

Sue loves piecing and has been quilting for about 12 years. She has a longarm APQS Millennium with a CompuQuilter, but only quilts for herself. She bought an Accuquilt GO when they were first introduced and loves it so much that she now has not only a GO! but a Baby GO! and a Studio Cutter. She has done demonstrations and presentations of the Accquilt GO at the Arizona Quilters Guild recent annual show in March. She also teaches quilt piecing classes using the GO! at her local quilt shop. 

For three years she has concentrated on making quilts for the Quilts of Valor project. She creates all of her designs so that she can cut 90% or more with the Accuquilt system. Two of her beautiful quilts can be seen below and more of her quilts can be seen on her Flickr site and on her Webshots site. 

Star Quilts by Sue Edberg

I made this quilt specifically as a QOV. The center of each block is a square in a square block and I did use Jodi Barrow’s Square in a Square ruler but I wasn’t entirely happy with it. I would try something different next time. I now have a smaller half square triangle die and it might work.

This is a closeup before I quilted it.

This green quilt was a lot of fun. I took the basic block and set it on point. I changed the placement of the colors (used EQ7) to design this and just played with it until I was happy. It really didn’t take very long and I love the look of this. It looks very difficult to piece, but it really isn’t. You just have to watch the placement of the square colors. The quilt is basically made up of one block but I believe it was two different colorways – some had dark and light 4 patch squares in the center and the others had light and medium 4 patch squares in the center.

And here’s a closeup

 
 

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Another Eight Pointed Star

This Quilts of Valor GO! for a Star has made me try things I never thought I would do. This 8 pointed star is one I have admired for years. I even bought the Accuquilt die. But I’ve always been intimidated by triangles and even more intimidated by these triangles. Well, I tried it anyway—so here’s a quick photo essay on putting this block together. The finished size is 9 inches, so if you make blocks to send for a Quilts of Valor submission you can add sashing to the sides to make it come up to 12-1/2 inches. If you’re going to make a top or a quilt, you don’t need anything except the minimum quilt / top size of 55 x 65 inches.

Here’s the finished block:

 

 These are the dies that I used for a 9 inch finished block:

 

This the number of pieces needed for each block:

This is how I constructed the star points:

 
 

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Star with Flag Center Quilt Block

This quilt block was sent to me by Colleen over at http://colleens-sewinspired.blogspot.com/. Colleen is a new blogger, but has been a stitcher for many years. She asked for cutting instructions for making this in an 8 inch finished size, but I have also included cutting instructions for the 12 inch finished size. I am not going to include block construction because you can use the Split Star instructions for making this block. The only difference is the center unit – one is a flag and the other is a half square triangle.

Click on the image below to access the adobe pdf file with cutting instructions.

  
 

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Split Stars

Did I get the quilt from last week made over the weekend? No – another “best laid plan”. Hopefully one of you made one. I’m working on a t-shirt quilt for a customer which is a graduation gift. There are 25 t-shirts and this is a humongous quilt. I have been appliqueing the small printed parts of the t-shirt onto the larger blocks. It seems t-shirts are always printed with the date on the opposite side of the shirt as the main design. And if a t-shirt quilt is a ‘memory’ quilt, someday the owner of that quilt might want to recall the exact year and place those memories happened. So, I take the extra time to make sure the dates and places get appliqued somewhere on the main block.

Now, back to Quilts of Valor ideas:

One of the patterns I have never made, but have always dreamed of making, is the Split Star. There are several versions – and you can make your own using the star of your choice. The key is to split the star diagonally from corner to corner and then use light and dark backgrounds and/or star colors on either side of the split. Here is an example. The split star is alternated with a half square triangle made with light and dark. Both blocks are 12 inch blocks. The patches on the star block are made based on a 3″ patch with four patches across and four patches down. I’ll show you how to make this block using rotary cutting or the Accuquilt GO in my next post.

12 inch finished block

 

Quilt finished size is 60″ x 72″

 
 

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Connected Stars – Tutorial

With all this cold weather, it’s nice to be inside and working on a quilt pattern. Today’s tutorial is for the Connected Stars Quilt that would be a great one to make for a QOV. And you will see that it can be made with pieced or appliqued stars. I have used Ebony’s EDeN™ cutting system. There are instructions at the bottom of the table to help you understand it as well as complete cutting instructions and die numbers in the table too.

Found an error from the table yesterday, so have corrected it on that image and also in the table today. The error was in Unit B which should be a rectangle cut 6 1/2″ x 3 1/2″. Somehow, in the stream of things, I wrote 8 instead of 6.

Hope you enjoy!

 

Click HERE for a Printable Copy of these Instructions

CUTTING INSTRUCTIONS

Unit #

# Units Needed

Unit*

Accuquilt GO! Die

Cutting Instruction

Notes

A

28

SQ-4

55054

or

 Cut 3 each 4 ½” x WOF using the 4 ½” strip cutter, then rotate 90 degrees and subcut into 4 ½” squares

55060

or

 Cut strips 10” x WOF for use with the GO! Square 4 ½” Multiples

55018

 Cut strips 5” x WOF for use with the GO! Value Die

B

24

REC-6×3

55032

 Cut 2 each 6 ½” x WOF using a rotary cutter, then fanfold across the 3 ½” strip cutter

C

24

REC-12×3

55032

 Cut 2 each 12 ½” x WOF using a rotary cutter, then fanfold across the 3 ½” strip cutter

D

32

SQ-4

55054

or

 Cut 4 each 4 ½” x WOF using the 4 1/2” strip cutter (55054), then rotate 90 degrees and subcut into 4 ½” squares

55060

or

 Cut strips 10” x WOF for use with the GO! Square 4 ½” Multiples

55018

 Cut strips 5” x WOF for use with the GO! Value Die

E

10

REC-12×4

55054

 Cut 2 each 12 ½” x WOF using a rotary cutter, then fanfold across the 4 ½” strip cutter. Save leftover fabric from the second strip to cut the last F piece below.

F

10

REC-8×4

55054

 Cut 1 each 8 ½” x WOF using a rotary cutter, then fanfold across the 4 ½” strip cutter (55054). Use the leftover fabric from the E cuts to make the last piece in this set.

Border

290 inches

3” finished

55032

 To cut border on lengthwise grain: Cut 30 inches across the width of fabric. Fanfold this across the 3 ½”  strip cutter and make 10-11 strips.To cut border on crosswise grain: Cut 30 inches across the width of fabric. Cut 8 strips across the width of fabric.Piece these strips together on the diagonal to make one continuous border strip.

Binding

290 inches

1 ½”cut

55014 or 55017

 To cut binding on crosswise grain: Cut 22 inches across the width of fabric. Cut 8 strips across the width of fabric.

*using the EDeN™ Cutting Nomenclature

SQ = square

REC = rectangle

all measurements are given in finished sizes so ½” should be added for ¼” seam allowances on each side.

 

 

 

Block and Quilt Construction
You will need 12 pieced or appliquéd 6 ½” blocks (finished size will be 6”.    
Step 1: Stitch unit B to either side of your pieced blocks.  
Step 2: Stitch unit C to the top and bottom of your pieced blocks. You will have 12 completed blocks.  
Step 3: Piece 16 sashing strips
Step 4: Piece sashing rows
Step 5: Piece blocks and sashing rows together.
Step 6: Sew block rows and sashing rows together to complete quilt top.
Step 7: Borders Lay completed quilt top (minus borders) out flat and measure from top to bottom through the center of the quilt. Use this measurement length to cut the two side borders for the quilt. Laying the quilt out flat, pin the borders to the side edges, easing in any fullness as needed. Stitch the borders to the sides of the quilt with a ¼” seam. Press seams in the direction of the border.Lay quilt top with the side borders out flat and measure from side to side through the center of the quilt. Use this measurement length to cut the top and bottom borders for the quilt. Laying the quilt out flat, pin the borders to the top and bottom edges, easing in fullness as needed. Stitch the borders to the top and bottom edges of the quilt with a ¼” seam. Press the seams in the direction of the border.
Step 8: Quilt as desired
Step 9: Bind.

 
 

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Piecing the Quarter Square Triangle Units on the Ohio Star Block

Several people asked me how I would make the six inch finished Ohio Star block for the quilt that was shown in the post on Friday if I wanted to cut it using the Accuquilt GO!™ cutter. Using the rotary cutter to make a quarter square triangle unit to finish at 2″, one needs a square that is 3-1/4″ x 3-1/4″. That square would be rotary cut corner to corner to make quarter square triangle units. So that is where I started.

Using the Accuquilt GO!, the closest units to the 3-1/4″ square are the 3″ finished half square triangle and the 3-1/2″ square. My preference was to use the 3″ finished half square triangle even though there is more waste from trimming with it. The triangles stitch together so well with those dog ears cut off, that it makes it more fun to sew than if I used the square. (I used the  GO! Half Square-3″ Finished Triangle (55009); but you can also use the GO! Bountiful Baskets (55048).

I will show you both ways, and you can decide what works best for you. Instructions are on the photos – just click them for a step by step slide show.

Update: – if there is no image below, just a line – click on the line. IE9 seems to have a problem displaying the image. But the slide show really is there!

 

ohio_star_six_inch_diagrams

  
 

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GO!™ for a Star Blog Hop Day 2 – more tutorials and giveaways

This is Day 2 of the GO!™ for a Star Blog Hop and Gene Black has a great post with two tutorials for blocks. And what a great quilt-I want to make this one too. So many quilts, so little time. . . .Here’s a photo–you must go over and visit.

 

And I got an email from Judy over at SewFunQuilts yesterday. She’s having a giveaway of pre-cuts. Judy has been cutting stars for the GO!™ for a Star QOV Challenge. I think I’m in love – her stars are so pretty – the fabric is just wonderful – and the price is right. Besides the giveaway, she’s offering sets of stars for $1.00 just to cover the cost of postage.

 

And one last little item – I’ve been working on updating the Patriotic Stars Machine Embroidery Set. It will be available in the web shop later today. But here’s a little preview. Just imagine what you can do with that set and some of Judy’s stars. And yes, if you’re making a QOV for this Challenge, send me an email and tell me the machine format you use and I’ll send you some of the designs to use in your quilt. The two designs below are great for plain fabric, but there are great edge designs for printed fabric like Judy’s stars.

 

 

 

 

  
 

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GO!™ for a Star Blog Hop

The GO!™ for a Star Blog Hop to kickoff the April-May Quilts of Valor Challenge is this week. Here’s the lineup. You’re invited to visit each blog and sign up for the giveaways that you will find at each one. Happy April!

QOV Challenge Dates: April 1 – May 31

Blog Hop Dates: April 2-6

Featured Blogs for Blog Hop:

Monday 4/2/2012
Bejeweled Quilts by Barb

Tuesday 4/3/2012
Gene Black, an Alabama Artist and Quilter

Wednesday 4/4/2012
Marjorie’s Quilting Bee

Thursday 4/5/2012
North Hills Quilter

Friday 4/6/2012
Recap by Marjorie’s Quilting Bee

 Blogger support and promotion for blog hop and throughout the challenge:

SewCalGal

Lily Pad Quilting

Heirloom Quilting by the Pashofa Quilter

Desert Sky Quilts

Quilts of Valor Foundation Sunflower Meadowlark

SewFunQuilts

 
 

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Quilts of Valor (QOV) Challenge – Ideas for Layouts

Are you getting excited about the QOV Challenge? I have already started thinking about possible quilt layouts. There are minimum and maximum sizes listed in the guidelines, so I pulled out my trusty EQ7 and started playing around. The minimum and maximum sizes for the quilts are:

Minimum Size: 55 x 65 inches

Maximum Size: 72 x 90 inches

Points for the Challenge giveaways are awarded by points calculated based on a 12 inch finished block size. The reason for that is that if you don’t make a complete quilt top, you may still enter by submitting quilt block(s) that are 12-1/2 inches unfinished. If you are making a complete quilt top or finished quilt, it can be made with any size block you choose.

Here are some possibilities if you choose to make 12 inch finished blocks.

Layout 5 x 6 blocks, 12 inch block

 

Layout 3 x 4 blocks, 12 inch block

 

Layout 4 x 5 blocks, 12 inch block