Tutorial ~ Counting Stars Quilt

Number of blocks 22 / Finished quilt size 72 1/2"x 86"

{Materials} I used the delightful fabric line: "floriography" by Pink Fig Design.

3/4 yard of 7 different fabrics

4 yards of light blue fabric for background (Shades/Aqua Marine)

5 1/2 yards for backing (I had a lot less fabric than that, but that is the standard requirement by the chart I found.

batting that is slightly bigger than the finished quilt top

*If you are going to hand quilt like I did --- I used 100% cotton size 10 crochet thread, but there is a variety of threads available from DMC and such. I like using chenille needle. The needle hole is large enough for the thick thread and the needle is sharp enough to quilt.

{How to}

1. {Cutting}

* From 3/4 yard of 7 different fabrics --- To make 22 star blocks, cut 18 pieces of 10" diamonds from each fabric so you can make three star blocks; except one of them you need to cut 24 pieces of diamond to make 4 star blocks. Also, I cut 1 3/4" wide strips out of the leftovers to make 9 yards of binding strips.

* From light blue fabric cut 138 pieces of diamonds; 132 pieces for creating star blocks 6 pieces for adding to the sides later.

There are several ways to cut out diamond shapes out of your fabric. At first I was using Amanda's diamond ruler to see how the star blocks would look...

Line up the edge of the ruler to the folded part of the fabric, and make cuts. Voila! now, you have a diamond. For those of you don't own a diamond ruler I created a 10" diamond template you can print out. OR, since this doesn't require fussy cut, you can draw a line on the fabric 10" at 60 degrees and cut a whole bunch at once. It goes much faster when you are cutting 138 pieces of background fabric.

2. {Construct the star block} --- You will need 6 diamond pieces with patterned fabric and 6 light blue fabrics to make one star block

Sew 2 pieces of diamonds with patterned fabric together and sew. Leave 1/4" from both ends, make sure to lock stitch(or back stitch) to secure the stitches. Press with iron.

Pin the light blue fabric and sew.

Open up and pin from the middle to the other end and sew. When you pin the points, make sure that they line up perfectly, so your blocks have less irregularities.

Press all the seams toward the same direction and press with iron.

Then the middle of the quilt block will look like this in the back...

Make two more of the same thing and piece them together with three light blue diamonds to fill in the gaps.

The back... When you always press the seam towards the same direction, it is much easier to have a beautifully finished back with less bulkiness where the corners and points meet.

{Putting Together the blocks}

After you are finished making 22 blocks, lay them out to see the color balance and such. You can make 4 half star blocks, since you are cutting off that part. I just went ahead and made regular blocks because I didn't know which colors will end up where. Use the picture as a guide. "d" is where you need to add light blue diamonds to fill in. I decided not to add any fabric on the corners to give this quilt a little unique finish.

After you added 6 pieces of light blue diamonds on the sides, cut half of it off.

Then, half of the star blocks from where it is shown in the picture...

Now, you are done putting the quilt top together! I hand stitched my quilt, but part of me wanted to see this quilt with a modern machine quilt design too.

I had to tell my kids not to touch the quilt until I am done taking pictures. Now, it is official. They can wrap themselves, make a fort, take it on our road trips and make a bunch of memories with the quilt this summer. I hope those memories are just like stars; bright spots in their lives for years to come.

Thank you for reading my tutorial, hope you enjoyed it. :)