Hello there! Welcome to Week 3 of our Feathered Star Quilt Along.

Last week we did all of our cutting. In this post I’m breaking down this step into lots of pictures.

Before we get into the heart of our post, I’d like to take a moment to thank this week’s sponsor Aurifil. Thanks for your support and for making so much awesome thread. 🙂

Last week’s winner of the Olfa 12×17 folding mat and the 28mm Quick Blade Change cutter is Lynn McIndoe on Instagram. Woo hoo!

How to follow along:

You have a few options to follow along:

• Sign up for the weekly Quilt Along emails by clicking the RSVP button below.
• Follow along on Instagram using the hashtag #BHQfeatheredstarQAL.
• Every week, on Wednesday, I’ll be posting a quilt along blog post on my website.

RSVP HERE

Schedule of Events

First, let’s check out the schedule again…

Week 1 – June 6: Introduction and Planning

Week 2 – June 13: Cutting 

Week 3 – June 20: Making the Star Spokes (you are here!)

Week 4 – June 27: Piece Blocks

(Mid QAL Break – Happy 4th of July!)

Week 5 – July 11: Piece Border Units

Week 6 – July 18: Assemble Quilt Tops

Week 7 – July 25: Quilting and Making the Scrappy Binding

Week 8 – August 1: Quilt Parade Link Up Party (Linky will close August 27th)

Closing Post – September 6

Making the Star Spokes

So, last week we spent our time doing all the cutting. Now we can start sewing! Yah! This week, you’ll be sewing the strips into strip sets and then cutting the star spokes from each strip set.

I’m going to walk you through the process for one block. For the quilt you’ll need to make 13 blocks worth of spokes and for the alternative layout you’ll need 9.

Sew your strip sets together

For one star block choose 3 fabrics to work with. I chose a hot pink, and mustard print, and a neon. BTWs the neon will totally mess with my camera. Ha! From each color, choose 4 strips of different sizes.

Divide the colors into groups that will become your strip sets. Make sure to put different sized strips in each grouping. You don’t want to have all your small strips in one group. Now, sew those strip sets together. Be sure to keep the strips in the same order.

Cut the Star Spokes

Now that the strip sets are sewn, let’s cut our star spokes. Caveat, everyone’s ruler is different. If you get stuck use the enclosed template as a check. Be sure to make a copy of the original.

On your cutting mat, lay two strips sets wrong side up. As you do this try to keep the seams aligned with the horizontal lines on your mat.

On top of those strip sets, lay the other two strip sets right side up.

Here’s a close up.

Our next step is to make our first cut at a 45 Degree angle. Above, I’m showing you how I do mine. (Remember your ruler may be different.) I’ve lined up my 45 Degree lines with the vertical and horizontal lines on my cutting mat. Once I have it lined up, then I make that angled cut.

The next step is to cut the star spokes. If you get stuck, you can use the template as shown above to double check.

This will give you 4 and 4 reversed star spokes, Enough for 1 block.

Now we’ll need to cut the star spokes down to 4 3/4”. Again you can use the template if you need help.

Do this for both the 4 Star Spokes and 4 Reversed Star Spokes.

Ok, so that’s how you make the star spokes. Make 13 sets for the quilt, or 9 sets for the alternative layout.

Optional and New: Cut the Binding

Oooooh, I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before…. oh … probably because I had that awesome stripe for binding! Anyhoo, you can cut your binding from the left over strip sets. Just simply cut additional strips using either a 2 1/4” or 2 1/2”, depending on how you wide you like your binding. In the pic, I’m showing 2 1/4”. You should be able to get 2 widths from the left overs. I’m only showing one because I goofed and made a cutting error.

I’ll show you how to piece these strip sets into binding when we get to the quilting step.

This week’s sponsor

This week, Aurifil is offering a prize to one lucky participant. So let’s give them a big ole’ quilty thank you for sponsoring our fun!

How to participate

We’re going to be doing most of our interaction on Instagram. To enter, post a pic of process (any step!) this week on Instagram with the #bhqFeatheredStarQAL. I’ll choose a winner at random next Tuesday!

You’ll need a public Instagram account.

By the way, for general chatter and ongoing discussion, you can also join my Facebook group “Quilting with Bryan House Quilts”.

Next Week

Next week we’ll start assembling the star blocks. Enjoy this week!