Saturday, May 7, 2022

Pop Star - Centre Star Unit

Have you put your four pop star units on your design wall to admire all week as I have?! Well this week we are going to fill in the centre.
Betcha can't wait out the week to put the whole quilt together, just sayin'...
For clarity, I will refer to the quilt on the graphic, which I am making, for colours.
Large star - turquoise.
Pop stars - navy
BG or Contrasting centre star - *remember you had a choice whether to make the centre star out of the background (BG) fabric or make it contrasting. I did BG fabric centre star for the baby Pop Star and I'm doing a contrasting fabric (lavender) for the throw.

1. Gather the following: one 2 1/2" x 4 1/2" (3 1/2" x 6 1/2") turquoise rectangle, one turquoise/navy flying geese, and one turquoise/BG or Contrasting centre star flying geese. Sew these three together as shown, pressing the seams to the rectangle. Make four of these units which will measure 4 1/2" x 6 1/2" (6 1/2" x 9 1/2").
I'm always all about finding different methods to make blocks. Do you see that this unit could have been made without flying geese, but with stitch and flip squares in the four corners of a rectangle? If you have a large print you don't want chopped up, this is an option, though it does create waste, rather a lot if you are doing the throw. Rose made her quilt this way for this reason!

2. To make the centre section for the centre star, sew two of the units you just made on either side of a 4 1/2" (6 1/2") BG or contrasting centre star fabric. See the image below step 3.

3. Sew in this order: a turquoise 6 1/2" (9 1/2") square, one unit from step 1, and another turquoise 6 1/2" (9 1/2") square. Make two. See the three sections below.

4. Sew the three sections together, pressing the seams open or to one side.

That's it for this week!

However!
I am going to give you part of next week's instructions in case you have a slow week coming up. If this coming week has plenty of regular scheduled sewing, then leave it until next Saturday. We'll add the borders in next week's instructions as well. Then you'll have a month to quilt it for the final parade. It seems crazy that nearly all the steps are complete. I am sure you can figure out what comes next...

5. Take four 8 1/2" (12 1/2") BG squares, and the four units you made last week, and lay them out as shown, making one giant turquoise star with the partially finished pop stars floating over it. Sew the squares and units into rows, and the three rows together to make one giant star. 

Missing: my four BG squares! I cannot believe I didn't take a photo of my star with the four BG squares, but it was one of those 'Eeee! I'm almost done the quilt centre; I'm going to keep going!' moments. Thus, here it is on the design wall with the H2H quilt and its backing underneath, (posted yesterday) so please ignore the strange fabrics beneath my quilt!

It makes me wildly happy to see what has been on a small graphic or in my EQ8 mockup now in real and glorious life! I love how subtle the lavender centre star is.

Remember you can get the pattern in my Etsy shop, SandraJaneQuilts!


This week I'm featuring two more sponsors.


I got to know Yvonne at Quilting Jet Girl better when she was a host with Cheryl (MMD) for the New Bloggers Hop I participated in several years ago. I also participated in her Triangle Transparency QAL in 2018. In fact, this quilt was the one in my yoga bag for the month of April! Each month I take a different small quilt to sit upon when I teach. Yvonne designs patterns, teaches online and has taught at QuiltCon, and is a tech editor for several pattern designers, of which I am one! Her shop is here.

Was I tickled when I realized not only was Lorna of Sew Fresh Quilts Canadian, but that she lives only a couple hours away from me here in Ontario! She is pretty famous in the world of quilting with her fun designs that are often animal-themed, but also range into other areas like camping and gnomes. She's been published several times in magazines, and runs a very successful quilt pattern business. She has run several QALs, her Dog Gone Cute one being wildly popular. Her shop is here.

Happy sewing!



7 comments:

  1. Thanks for our new lot of instructions & although having fun with this, not happy with my colour choice for the "popping stars", but I don't always get it right. You've certainly picked up quite a few sponsors. Well done. Take care & hugs.

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  2. Getting started on my center star today! It is so fun to see it come to life out of my fabric choices!

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  3. I'm one step away from this step so am making progress! Thank you for the clear instructions, once again!

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  4. Too funny about the pics….I love the way this looks. Not sure if I will pull it off this year, but we shall see. Darn ankle!

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  5. Just sewing my units, I have in 3 sections actually, all together as it's been sitting on design wall for over a week. I'm still waiting for my border fabric to arrive in the mail as it'll be slightly different than my whole center star unit. I just love this pattern Sandra, it's so easy to follow and to sew together. I can't wait to get this off my design wall so I can start on another!

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  6. too late to join the party? Could this be a Dreami moment for me? I need two quilts for the garden sun loungers, I am sure I could lengthen this for one of them

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