February – Paul’s Fancy Star Block Lotto

For the VMQG March block challenge we’re going to make these blocks with black to grey prints and a bright print for the accent colour. You can use either black or grey for the background and the other for the star points. You’ll end up with a 10 inch finished block.

It’s a traditional block, but modern fabrics give it a new look.

This is my (Paul’s) edit of a fancy star block. I’ve seen it at a workshop and in a magazine. Here’s my easy instructions for a 10 inch block.

Here’s the fabric you’ll need:

The four big squares will get cut into quarters diagonally, they are 5 1/4 inch squares. You need 2 for the points of the stars, one for the centre accents and one background.

The centre snowball is a 4 1/2 inch square and the corners are four 1 1/2 inch accent squares that will become the triangles of the snowball.
The four outside corner squares are 3 1/2 inch squares.

Cut your fabric.

Here are all the steps in one picture. The orange lines are cut lines.

 

One step at a time instructions

First cut your fabric. I accidentally made the centre block the same colour as the points. OOPS. Make it the same colour as your background for a lighter, airier star.

Cut the four big squares corner to corner into 4 triangles.

Sew the triangles into hourglass blocks and snowball the centre square. Trim both blocks to 4 1/2 inches square.

Cut the bottoms off your hourglass blocks.  From the top, measure down 3 1/2 inches and cut off the extra accent colour edge.  The hourglass block will now be 3 1/2 by 4 1/2.

Lay them out and sew them together by rows, then sew the rows together.

The stars look airier if you use the background fabric for the centre, unlike the example in this tutorial.

Also note that the accent triangles aren’t all the same size. The more I fiddled with them, the less I was able to get them to touch each other at the points. You know, the “galloping horse” rule applies here.

Please visit Paul’s Block Party blog for the original post with more photos!