Make Me A Star!

I need to make twelve of these "sawtooth stars" for my alphabet quilt. You might remember I found the half finished quilt in the course of my spring cleaning. I thought I stopped working on it because I ran out of the background fabric. But, I located about a yard of it while purging my closet of clothing I haven't worn for a year or more! So, the project continues.......The pattern for the alphabet blocks can be found in this book:

However, I decided to use sawtooth stars instead of the applique called for in the book's pattern. The primary reason is because the stars are much easier than the applique!

So, here is my method for making these stars:

First you want a large square and small squares of your star pattern. Plus you will need a rectangle piece of your background fabric and small squares of your background fabric. The whole mess looks like this:
Then you want to place the green square on the background fabric, right sides facing together.

The square is slightly larger than half of the rectangle. That is because you want to have room to make the seam. You will see as we progress with this star.


Then you will want to see a diagonal line from the upper right corner to the center. Some people draw the line. I am lazy and just eyeball it. It seems to work more of the time.
After you make the seam, you want to cut the fabric to create an quarter inch seam allowance. Like so:
Then you will press the fabric open:


Then place the other square on top of the rectangle and repeat the seam from the other side. Then press the seam open. Viola! Star points!

You will need to make a total of four "star point" pieces. Two are sewn to the center square and two will have the background squares sewn to them, like this:
And then you will sew it all together, like this:
Isn't quilting amazing?

It can transform this:

Into this:

The Log Cabin

The Log Cabin block is one of the easiest ones to make.  It is a GREAT way to use up extra fabric and I love the design options available once you've made all your blocks.  This is yet another project I found in my spring cleaning.  I'm pretty sure this is going to end up being a VERY LONG project to complete.  But, it is easy to work on bit by bit and maybe in a few years I will have a really cute and warm quilt. 

Basically the you start with a center square and then build on it with strips of fabric.  Traditionally the center square is red.  That represents the hearth as the center of warmth and comfort in the home.  Then dark and light pieces build out from the hearth.  Those are supposed to represent the light and dark reflections that a fire creates in a room. 

I often use this quilt block to teach my English classes about symbolism and color.  I've used in a variety of lesson plans with many different types of classes.  Kids really seem to understand how the colors and shape can have meaning beyond "just a bunch of pieces of fabric sewn together."

Below are some photos of blocks in process......

 

Spring Thoughts and Projects

I can't believe how many partially finished projects I found in my spring cleaning. As I've started working on these again, it's been funny to discover what halted my progress previously. In case of this alphabet quilt, I ran out of the cream fabric used for the background!
Hopefully I will be able to find more of it whenever I get around to going to Jo-Ann's. Actually, looking through my fabric stash to try to locate this cream fabric is what led to the discovery of another unfinished project. I laid the pieces out and investigated why this project had stopped.
I couldn't for the life of me figure out why, aside from the fact that this quilt has a lot of tiny pieces and is sort of a pain to make. The pink arrow pieces were all sewn and pressed, but the green ones still needed to be pieced. So, I started making the green ones and discovered the problem! I had cut all the white and beige triangles too large. This mistake made the green arrows too thin. The funny thing was the correction was simple, I just trimmed a half inch on all the white and cream triangles. I imagine I just got to the point where I realized I made a mistake and was too exhausted to correct it and put the whole project away. A few years later, I found the problem easy to solve! So, maybe that is the lesson of my spring cleaning. Some problems are really difficult to deal with in the present. So, just put them on a shelf and come back to them. The new perspective and time might allow you to devise an easy solution and continue your beautiful life, or quilt.