For the VMQG March block challenge we’re going to make these Fancy Star blocks. The colour scheme I settled for is modern designer print star on a light grey background. The entire star (snowball and points) will be the designer print. You’ll end up with a 10 inch finished block. It’s a traditional block, but modern fabrics give it a new look.
Star – (centre snowball block and 8 points) modern fabric. Something designer, or fun, or classy or cool.
Background – (four 3 ½ squares and one 5 ½ square) light to medium grey. Can be solid, blender, patterned, or low volume.
Accent – (four 1 ½ squares and one 5 ½ square) fabric that coordinates or contrasts with the designer fabric. Can be solid or blender.
I changed one item from the last time this tutorial was posted – the four big squares (two for points, one for background, one for accent) should be cut at 5 ½ inches square to give you more wiggle room for squaring down to 4 ¼ inches.
The four big squares will get cut into quarters diagonally. You need 2 for the points of the stars, one for the centre accents and one background.
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 your blocks out like this:
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 block in the layout example.
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.
Paul Krampitz
@paul_kpz