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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Tutorial: Tessellating Stars from Jelly Roll Strips and a Give Away!

If anyone has a question or finds a problem with my instructions please email me (jewelsarmcandy at Gmail dot com).

When finished with this portion you should have something that looks like this:



Fabric needed for this entire project (including the houses):

 1 1/2 yd Moda Marble in Indigo (or whatever you want for your night sky)

17 Jelly Roll Pieces (9 brights for stars, 3 green for lawns and tree. 1 brown for tree trunk, 4 for house trim, doors and windows)  I used Simple Abundance by Bonnie and Camille for Moda

8 pieces of a layer cake (4 roofs,4 main houses) I love Simple Abundance!

Important: Cut only the tiniest bit from the selvage of both your sky fabric and your Jelly Rolls you will need all of the width of the strips to get the stars out of them.





Directions:
1. Cut 10 strips from Sky fabric  2 1/2" by WOF
       Subcut 36- 2 1/2" x 6 1/2" Rectangles
                   36- 2 1/2" x 5" Rectangles





2. From each of your 9 star Jelly Roll strips
      Subcut 4- 2 1/2" x 6 1/2" Rectangles
                 4- 2 1/2" x 4" Rectangles

                
Tip: When I have certain sizes of strips to cut I mark my ruler with paper at the different lengths. This keeps me from having to check my ruler 5 times before I cut. (Yes, 5 times I am OCD)


     


1. Place a 4" piece of star fabric on top of a 5" piece of sky fabric as shown below.



(This is just to show that they are lined up along the right hand edge)
                  
2. Mark a line with a chalk pencil or erasable marker from the top left corner of the star fabric to the bottom  right corner for the sky fabric.

3. Sew on the marked line (I re-marked in blue so that it would be more visable in the picture)


4. After it is sewn place your ruler so that the 1/4" mark is on the stitched line and cut off the corner. (My red arrow shows where the stitching is. Be careful to only cut off the corner it should be a triangle you are cutting off).





5. Press (I like to press toward the star fabric but it doesn't matter which way you do it).


6. Sew a  2 1/2 x 6 1/2" rectangle to the side of the unit you just made. Make sure that you sew the shortest  part of the star fabric in the first unit to the long piece of star fabric as you see below and press.



Seventh Inning Stretch

7. Sew one of the 2 1/2" x 6 1/2" pieces of sky fabric to the opposite side of the first unit as seen below and
    press.




Yeah! That is all there is to it.

8. Do this again 35 times until you have 36 blocks like this. You should have 4 of each star fabric.

9. Rearrange and turn the blocks so that they are set like this:



10. Sew each star from these four blocks (they should total a block that is 12 1/2" square) then set them in   three rows of three so that your growing quilt looks like the one at the top.

I will give you a few days to work on this and be back after the weekend with the directions for the houses as well as a printable sheet to plan tesselating stars and make all of the stars out of seperate fabrics (without the same color for all of the sky).


Ready For The Give Away???

Just leave a comment here about what fabrics you would like to make the stars out of. The winner will receive 9- 2 1/2" strips of Simple Abundance to get their stars started (bright pretty ones... of course they are all pretty. Have a mentioned I love Simple Abundance? I thought so).  Comments must be received before midnight PST on Wednesday October 7th. You can get two entries if you blog about the tutorial or the Give Away on your blog. Just let me know that you blogged it... thanks.

4 comments:

Carin said...

I think this would make cool snowflakes so I think I would used whites and creams to make the stars and blues to do the background.

Mary on Lake Pulaski said...

I would love to make the stars out of Rouenarries by French General. Such great stars! I love Simple Agundance too.

Anonymous said...

I would love to make the stars out of various black, white and red fabrics.

Virginia W. Pilegard said...

I quilt with a group of church ladies of all skill levels. We donate quilts to veterans, elders, and children in distressing situations and we're always looking for just this type of simple, yet eye catching block. Thanks!