Kite Shapes in Blocks

Geometry is just so cool, but it can make your brain hurt sometimes too! Quilting is so good for our brains isn't it? We do geometry, measurements, and all sorts of calculations. For the Lyra quilt, four kite blocks are in the corners, creating another starburst. I used these same shapes in my very first QAL, Freefall, which was ten years ago. As I said, I love that connection from the first to this current one. Here is the ‘bad boy’ in question:

I’ve made a paper-piecing template for it, which is how we did this block in Freefall. You can get the link to download it here. It’s in Dropbox as well, and again, you do not need a dropbox account to access the file. You'll find a paper-piecing template for the square-in-a-square block in the same PDF.

I made a detailed tutorial in 2017 on paper-piecing without sewing through the paper when we did the Freefall QAL. I learned it from Joanne at Canuck Quilter, (that link takes you to her 2014 tutorial) and it changed my LIFE! No papers to rip off, the same precision as with sewing through the paper-LOVE. My tutorial is here. Although it is using a 3” finished block as opposed to our current 5” finished block, the process is the same so there’s no need for me to replicate it here.

If you don’t have a printer, then you can make your own paper-piecing foundation. Draw a 5” square. Mark the halfway point on two adjacent sides; in other words at 2 ½”. Draw a straight line to the opposite corner. Repeat with the second 2 ½” mark. In the photo below, you can see I’ve drawn one line, and have my ruler set where I will draw the second line.

Not shown: drawing a dotted line ¼” all the way around for the seam allowance.

Paper-piecing can make for a LOT of waste, so when there are several blocks repeated in a quilt, as in this one, (16), I like to make a template from the foundation I’ve either printed or drawn. 

Simply trace the kite shape onto another piece of graph paper, regular, or freezer paper. Add ¼” seam allowances all the way around and then you can use it to cut out your shapes for the kite-shaped star points. This is what I did for Freefall:

This method won’t give you the nicely angled corners for alignment, but there are still tips for aligning the pieces which I show in the tutorial, and will talk about next week when we piece these units. Remember, for the side triangles, which are identical to the side triangles that form the spiky star points, you need a right and a left side, so be sure to cut those on a double-fold of fabric, either right or wrong sides together.

Let me know in the comments if you have any questions and I can answer them right in this post.

Happy cutting!