It's About TIME!

I bet you thought I'd never get around to doing a tutorial on the Scrappy Stars quilt, did you? Well, SURPRISE! Here it is--the first half, at least!

This part of the pattern was given to us--my online Thimbleberries group--by my friend Kairle as a mystery quilt. Today I'm going to give you directions for making the main blocks. Tomorrow I'll talk about the sashing that forms the secondary pattern--that part of the quilt was something I came up with.

The original directions Kairle gave us were for making four blocks, which makes a nice size tabletopper. For the quilt I made pictured above, I used 16 blocks, and that made a bed-sized quilt for a twin or double bed. Today I worked on making only four blocks, so that's what I'm going to give you as far as cutting directions--you'll need to increase that accordingly if you want a larger quilt. Make sense?

This is a scrappy quilt, so I'll just refer to "neutral" fabrics and "medium/dark" fabrics. If you want a more controlled look to your quilt, this would be a pretty good pattern for a two color quilt.

CUTTING (FOR FOUR BLOCKS)

From Neutral Fabrics:

Eight (8) 5" squares
Sixteen (16) 4-1/2" squares

From Medium/Dark Fabrics:

Eight (8) 5" squares
Forty-Eight (48) 2-1/2" squares

PIECING DIRECTIONS:

On the back of each of the eight 5" neutral squares, draw a diagonal line. Pair up a neutral square with a colored square, "right" sides together. For each pair, sew a seam 1/4" on either side of the center drawn line.

Cut on the line and press open. You'll end up with 16 half square triangles. Trim each of the 16 blocks to measure 4-1/2". Set aside.

Using 16 of the 2-1/2" colored squares, make four 4-patch center blocks. Set aside.

You should have left 16 4-1/2" neutral squares and 32 2-1/2" colored squares. Place a colored square on the corner of a neutral square and sew on the diagonal like this:

Trim under layer(s) and press up. Repeat with the "neighboring" corner (see picture below). Again, trim and press up into place. Now it should look like this (except less blurry! LOL!):

You now have all the "parts" that form the blocks. I find it helpful to place the pieces on my design wall in their correct positions and work from the wall to sew them all together.

When you've sewn your pieces together, your unfinished blocks will measure 12-1/2". Now you've finished the first part!

To be continued . . . .