This month’s challenge for Island Batik is Star Struck and this is my quilt tutorial and free pattern for my modern version of a star.

I had a difficult time getting the color match on the full quilt photos! This looks a bit yellow–background fabric is actually white. See the close up of the star point below for the true colors.

The Island Batik Ambassador challenge this month was to create a Star Quilt. I decided to take a modern approach and create an oversized wonky star using a limited color palette. The modern design principles I played with included:

Playing with scale
Use of negative space and high contrast
Improvisational piecing
Asymmetry

If you want to read more about my perspectives on modern design principles, check out my earlier post HERE and HERE on this topic.

Designing the Star

I decided that I wanted to make a modern wall hanging with one oversized star. Since I had never made a wonky star, I did some searching on the web and YouTube to learn the basic approach. I knew that the points were usually asymmetrical and I quickly learned the basic piecing approach.

However, I wanted my star to be much larger than the ones demonstrated in the other tutorials so I did a bit of simple sketching to see how large I wanted to go. I settled on a block design that would have very skinny, long points. That meant that the inner square would have to be relatively small–I settled on 4 inches finished as my target finished size.

The finished quilt measures 44″ square. I’ve attached a PDF layout of the finished dimensions.

My Fabrics

[Fabrics used in the project were provided to me by Island Batik–the sponsor for the Island Batik 2018 Ambassadors.)

To make this quilt, I used:

one yellow print for star center square –5 inch square of a yellow/red Sunflower Serenade
Star points and fragments in the inner border–1/2 yard of cherry red Dragonfly Dreams
Fabric for background and borders–2-3/4 yards of Almond Neutral.

Making the Star Points

For each point block, I wanted the points to be unequal lengths. I did NOT make a template or measure them out. It was an improvisational process. Here’s how I did it.

Cut a strip measuring 5″ x 18 inches from the background. Cut 2 red strips measuring 2″ x 15 inches.

Then, I took one red strip and laid it at an angle on the background at just beyond the halfway point on the short end of the background strip. I sewed it from the tip on the left to the end of the background using a1/4 inch seam.

I pressed it open, and then laid the second strip across and sewed it across the first strip. I sewed it from the left end going towards the right end. I then pressed it open to create the V shape.

After pressing open, trim the sides and background to 4-1/2 inches by 15-1/2 inches. **Note that this is one of my test versions**. I played with placement so that the two points would be more uneven…but forgot to take more photos!!!

Close up of Star point in truer colors. Note the star edge-to-edge quilting motif.

Improvisational Inner Border

I cut small leftovers and pieced them into background strips. I sewed these pieces together and cut the borders to the lengths shown below in the layout.

Here are some close ups of parts of the borders.

To make the borders, I cut and pieced scraps leftover from making the star points.

QUILT TUTORIAL PATTERN LAYOUT

Here are the UNFINISHED sizes of the blocks.

BLOCK A : 4-1/2″ by 4-1/2″

BLOCK B : 4-1/2 ” by 15-1/2″

BLOCK C : 15-1/2″ by 15-1/2″

BLOCK D: 34-1/2″ by 5-1/2″

BLOCK E : 5-1/2″ by 44-1/2″

TRY OTHER COLORWAYS!

I hope you will try this process to make your own Star Wall Hanging.

How about adding a 1 inch wide (finished) inner border and making the star in cool blues for a modern winter holiday look.

And, of course, you can make it in red, green and gold for Christmas!

Quilting Ideas Designed on EQ8

I wasn’t sure how I wanted to quilt this wallhanging. Then, I decided to use random straight lines that vaguely looked like a star in the four large squares. To test my idea, I created a quilting motif using EQ8. However, I ended up giving the quilt to Carol Byrnes to long arm quilt for me–she used a complementing edge to edge star motif. But, I am glad that I played with this feature in EQ8–I can give some custom design ideas to longarmers in the future.

Here’s a screen shot of the motif.

Here’s a screen shot of the motif on a photo of the quilt top. In the upper right block, I altered the thread thickness in EQ8 and made the thread very bold so that you can see it better.

EQ8 is a great program for testing quilting ideas. You can use the program to design a custom motif or use one of the standard quilting motifs provided in the software.

Binding

I created a faced binding for this quilted wallhanging because I wanted the infinite edge of the borders to really stand out. For a tutorial on making a faced binding, go HERE.