Chevron Star

Well, it seems that my trouble with the Woven Star last week, combined with the fact that I thought Tuesday was Monday for most of the day (two Mondays in one week did seem a bit unfair!), has knocked me a bit off track.  My apologies.  But I’ll be posting the tutotial scheduled for today…today.  So everything will be caught up by this evening, in plenty of time for some weekend sewing. :)

And since this is the eighth star, we’re over halfway!  Woohoo!  Regardless of whether you’re making the variations, or just sticking to the basic stars, you should have 8 of the 12″ stars, 16 of the 8″ stars and 40 of the 4″ stars.  Or at least something in the neighbourhood of those amounts!  Things are looking really great over in the Flickr group, so be sure to pop by if you haven’t done so in a while.

So, on with the tutorial!  You’ll need eighteen (18) pieces for this star, according to the following dimensions:

This star doesn’t have many pieces, but because the vertical star points are made of a different fabric than the horizontal star points, the method that we’ve been using thus far for making the flying geese won’t work.  If waste is a concern for you, then you can use the HST squares that both Tong and Jeni used in their tutorials.  However, I prefer to avoid unnecessary seams (just a matter of personal preference), and the method that I’m going to use in this tutorial does so, but at the expense of a few leftover HST squares.  The choice is yours.

Begin by marking the centre line on the 3-1/2″ squares cut from your two foreground fabrics, as well as 1/2″ to one side of centre.  Start with two (2) squares from each of the two foreground fabrics and pin them, right sides together, to the 3-1/2″ x 6-1/2″ rectangles of background fabric, making sure that the extra line is in the corner of the rectangle, comme ça:

Sew just inside both marked lines (to create scant 1/4″ seams), and then cut in between them, and press both pieces, so that you have an HST square and one half of a geese unit.

Pin the remaining 3-1/2″ squares to the other sides of the rectangles and repeat the process.

When you’re finished you should have four (4) flying geese units, two each with your two foreground fabrics, as well as eight (8) leftover HST squares which you can save to use elsewhere in this quilt.  Trim up the flying geese to 3-1/2″ x 6-1/2″ and set them aside.

Next we’ll move on to the centre portion of the block.  Take the two 5-1/4″ squares of foreground fabric and cut them in half diagonally, and use them as QSTs to form a larger square, as below:

Begin by sewing them together as pairs, making sure that both pairs have the same fabric on the right when oriented in the same direction, so that they’ll be opposite one another when the pairs are oriented in opposite directions.  (Ok, I’ve tried to rewrite that sentence a few times with little success at clarity…I hope this makes sense!)

Then sew the two pairs together, paying attention to the alignment of the centre seams.  Press, and trim the square to 6-1/2″ before continuing.  (A little tip:  when squaring up at this point, align the 45° guide on your ruler with the diagonal, making sure that the dot at 3-1/8″ is in the centre where the 4 points meet.)

Put the star together in three rows.  Make sure that you match the flying geese units to the correct fabric in the QST unit.

Press and finish!

See you back here later today. ;)