Friendship Star Variation

Hello everyone!

Today, we will be showing you all a variation on the friendship star.

If you have made any of the fun maverick stars that have been floating around, this construction technique will be familiar to you.

Cut List for a 12.5" block:

- One 16" square of your background fabric

- Various scraps for the points; must be bigger than the point you're creating

Step 1: Cut your background piece into nine squares; make two randomly spaced horizontal cuts and two randomly spaced vertical cuts.

Step 2: Using your center square as a template, cut a piece of patterned fabric the same size of your center square.

Replace the background fabric center with the patterned fabric one.

Step 3: Making the points of the star

Take one of the background pieces for an arm of the star. Pick a scrap of fabric large enough to cover the corner of this piece.

Put your scrap fabric and your background fabric right sides together. Draw a line from the corner to midway along the side of the block. Make sure that you arrange the pieces so that when opened the two pieces will form a complete rectangle.

Sew along your pencil line.

Trim away the excess fabric, open up, and press.

 

Square up the rectangle, by trimming the excess print fabric.

Next, make three more points in the same fashion. As you make them, double check that all your points are orientated in the same direction. For me, this is definitely the most difficult part of the block.

Step 3 (Alternative): Some people might find it easier to trim the background fabric before sewing on the print points. This method make its easier to ensure that the points are all pointing the same way.

To make the points this way, draw a diagonal line from the corner to one side of the rectangle and trim along it.

Then, like before, match the wrong sides together, and sew along the diagonal seam.

Open up and press.

Trim the excess patterned fabric.


Consider piecing together different prints for some of the points.

Step 4: Assemble

Sew together your 4.5" squares into three rows.

Next sew together those three rows and you have a completed block! 
 Be sure to match up the center seams while sewing the rows together.

Step 5: Square up your block

Trim your block to 12.5" square. The triangles eat up quite a bit of fabric, so starting with 16" square will give you some wiggle room for a 12.5" square.

As you can see in this other block I made, changing the location of your initial cuts can really change up the look of the block. You can also make the star more off-centered.

If you have any questions, leave 'em in the comments!

As always, post your pictures to the Block Party flickr group.

Friendship Star PDF Tutorial!

By popular demand, here is a pdf version of the Friendship Star tutorial.


Friendship Star Tutorial

p.s. can anyone provide tips on posting pdfs directly to blogger without using google groups? I would like to make it so you can just right click and download... any techies out there? email me!

Charity Quilts & Friendship Stars!

Some exciting news about the quilt along and a possibility to be a part of something that will do a lot of good.

They wonderful ladies at FabFanatic have decided to coordinate some charity quilts being made in conjunction with our quilt along! They are going to auction them off to benefit Alex's Lemonade Stand, an organization that fights childhood cancer. We hope that as you're making blocks for the quilt along, you to make an extra block or two along the way and donate them to this great cause.

Email them here if you are interested in helping. It would be wonderful if many quilts came of this!

Also, since quilt assembling is a lot of work, perhaps there are people out there who would like to help with that aspect? Know a long arm quilter who might want to tackle a couple of quilts for a good cause? Would you enjoy spending a bit of time stitching a binding or two to help finish the quilts? Please let us know or just drop an email to FabFanatics directly about it.

Meanwhile, have you seen the great creativity popping up over at the flickr group? Lots of great Friendship Stars in there!

Check out the fun pieced center that Shawn Marie created for her block.

And doesn't it look great with these strongly contrasting colors that Aimee used?

Can't wait to see what other twists you come up with!

Friendship Star Tutorial

Hello everyone!

It's time to get started and for our first block tutorial, we'll be showing you the friendship star.

This is a traditional quilt block, but with fun bold fabrics it's easy to make it graphic and modern. It's a great beginners block as it teaches you how to make half square triangles.

Let's get started!

Cut List:

For one 12.5" block - in this version the star points are two different colors.

Cut two 5.25" squares of star fabric
Cut two 5. 25" squares of background fabric
Cut four 4.5" squares of background fabric
Cut one 4.5" center square

When assembling always sew with a 1/4" seam allowance.

First, you need to make your half square triangles. This method is invaluable as there are so many different ways in quilting that half square triangles are used.

1. Using a pencil, lightly draw a line along the diagonal of your 5.25" background squares.

2. Right sides together, layer your 5.25" star fabric square and your background square.

3. Sew a seam a 1/4" away from the pencil line, on both sides of it.

4. Now cut along the pencil line and you have two half square triangles!

5. Press them open and trim them down to 4.5" square.

6. Repeat this with your other 5.25" squares to make two more half square triangles.

7. Lay out your squares as you're going to assemble them.

8. Sew together your 4.5" squares into three rows.

9. Next sew together those three rows and you have a completed block!

Now that you know the construction method, why not try variations? You could do the whole star in one fabric like this:

Or you could go really scrappy like this:

If you use the half square construction method shown in this tutorial for this style of scrappy block, you'll be make enough half square triangles for two blocks.

We can't wait to see all of the fun Friendship Stars you make!! Remember to put them in the flickr group.

Up next week - how to make these blocks, but wonky!

Thank you and winners!

First of all we'd like to say thank you so much for your wonderful reaction to the quilt along. You are all so nice! We're excited to get started. Be sure and check back tomorrow for our first block tutorial.

Meanwhile let's get to the winners!! There were 390 comments, but some duplicates, so that narrowed down to 356 individual people commenting. The first number random number generator picked was:

262. Cut-N-Shoot Quilting Diva said...Come on random number generator...pick my number!! Big money Big Money...Purple and Brown Fabric...STOP! hahaha...Seriously, thanks so much for having the give away! I've added it to my blog site: http://cutnshootquiltingdiva.blogspot.com/2009/11/another-give-away.html Happy quilting!

342. acardaday said...I just joined my first bee a couple of months back and your quilt along sounds fun! yay!Just blogged about it all here http://acardaday.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/block-party/ and if I'm the lucky winner of your giveaway I'd pick the blue/green and orange bundle (but the brown and purple is pretty yummy too =))

Congrats Tammy & Nova!

Quilt Along Kick Off Giveaway!

Hello everyone and welcome to the beginnings of the Block Party Quilt Along! We hope that you'll join in and sew along with us!

What sets this quilt along apart from others is that it's theme centers around virtual quilting bees. This great online community is so much of what we're hoping to enjoy and promote. Here's how it's going to work:

We will post a tutorial on how to make a specific style of quilt block. If there is more than one way to make it, we'll show you the options. If there are ways to improvise off of the block, we'll also post about that. We can't wait to see all of the creative different spins that you all come up with based on one block. Quarterly we'll be posting a new block, with all of it's variety.

Along the way, we'll be posting a lot of what you make too! So many different people making so many blocks is certain to inspire new and exciting creativity.

We have started a flickr group here. Please join the group and once we get started, put your photos of the blocks you make in there!

Meanwhile, Block Party is, after all, a virtual quilting bee and we hope this quilt along spawns many more bees! We're starting a thread in the flickr group where you can post if you'd like to be a part of a bee. That way it will be easy to meet people and start one up.

And for those of you who are already in existing bees, maybe you'd like to make a quilt with the block we post? Maybe "your" month is coming up soon and you haven't been able to decide what block to have everyone make? If the block we post strikes your fancy, we hope you'll use it for your quilt!

Photos of the blocks and quilts you make will end up in the book. Once the time is right, we will be selecting blocks and quilts from the flickr group to feature in the book, so please don't forget to post your work in there. We'll be at this for at least a year, posting a new block quarterly, so there's plenty of time to join us! We hope that it will be lot of fun for all.

BUT! Before we get started, a giveaway!! What can you win? We have both selected some of our favorite fabrics and put together a coordinated fabric bundle that would make a fabulous quilt. 8 fat quarters per bundle with some hard to find fabrics mixed in.

We want to spread the word far and wide about this quilt along, so in order to enter please blog, twitter, or facebook about us, become a follower of the block party bee blog, or send an email to all your crafty friends. Then, post a comment here linking back to your mention or telling us what you have done to spread the word. Also let us know which of the fabric packs you'd prefer - the orange, green and blue bundle or the purple, pink and brown bundle. We'll pick the two winners with a random number generator next Monday, Nov. 9th. The first number picked will get their first choice, and the second number will get the other fabric bundle.
Now for the fine print: To win you MUST make sure we can contact you. If we don't have your email in your comment or blogger profile, you won't be eligible.

And let's wrap up with a photo of the amazing quilt top that Ashley put together from the bee we've been doing for the past few months. Beautiful right??

Oh this is all going to be so much fun! We can't wait to get started with all of you and see all of the beautiful blocks you come up with.

Exciting News and a quilt along!

Sorry it's been a bit quiet around here at the Block Party blog, but it's been for an exciting reason! Alissa and Kristen, the co-hosts of the bee, are writing a book!

C & T Publishing will publish it and it’s going to be about YOU! Ok, well, maybe not you specifically, but about all of us: the online modern quilting community.

It’s not going to be your usual book of quilt patterns and projects, but instead a “how to” book that will also be about all of the virtual quilting bees and the amazing sense of community that we have found online. Quilting bees have always given women a chance to get together and quilt, but now in the age of the Internet we have virtual quilting bees that have revitalized quilting and community among modern quilters.

We're so excited that every member of Block Party has agreed to be a contributor to the book. There are so many talented women involved and we're so honored to include ourselves among them.

And the most exciting part is that we’re going to be including all of YOU in the book too! We are going to be switching this blog over to a quarterly quilt along and we hope that lots of you will participate. We are including photos of some of the blocks you all make during the quilt alongs in the book, so please do join in. Your block might end up in the book!!

There will be more details coming along very soon so please keep an eye out for it and get ready to quilt along!

And lastly, thank you! All of you are so kind and generous and have made us feel like we're a part of something exciting. We are so happy to have that wonderful community and energy transfer over into a book that represents all of us and the fun modern quilts that we have been creating.