The Winner and Feathered Star Lesson 1: Old Fashioned Piecing

First the winner of yesterdays give-away is Deborah

She said

“I made my first quilt with the help of my grandmother when I was a pre-school age child. I took my first quilt class in 2005 and have been hooked ever since.”

Congratulations Deborah, your e-mail is on its way. If you don’t get it post a comment here and we will figure something out.

Feathered Star Lesson 1: Old Fashioned Piecing.

For making feathered star quilt blocks there is probably no better reference than Marsha McCloskey’s book “Feathered Star Quilt Blocks:1”. You can find it at her website www.marshamccloskey.com or I have it in my Amazon Store (see right side bar). I think the best one to learn to make is the 18.5” finished block. It has a lot of pieces but none of them are so tiny that you will get super frustrated.

A couple of things before we start: It’s a good idea for your thread to match your background fabric because the “feathers” are pressed…gasp…OPEN so there is a greater likelihood of your thread showing. Also, I like to use the Quilt-in-a Day Triangle Square Up Ruler to make my feathers. I’ve found that I’m much more accurate doing it this way. The one drawback is that when you press your feathers open you have to get your fingers a little close to the iron…but hey, if you’ve been following my appliqué tutorials you should have tough fingers by now. I did a tutorial on this ruler back in my early blogging days (6 months ago) and you can find it here (you might need to scroll down a bit).

Once I have decided on my fabric choices I cut things out. The triangles and squares are pretty straight forward. For the kites the first thing you do is cut a square the recommended size. Then cut it once across the diagonal. To get the kite shape you line up the diagonal with one edge of your ruler. The point of the diagonal should be the length of the side away from the end of the ruler (4 7/8” in this case). Cut off that little triangle and there’s your kite. Don’t forget you need eight.

Cut along the diagonal to start the kite

Measure 4 7/8" along diagonal and cut to make kite

Your kite should look like this

For cutting octagons you start with a 6 1/8” x 6 1/8” square. You will need to cut off the corners to form the octagon. I make a mark ¾” along two sides and draw a line. This line will be where you cut to get your octagon.

Make a mark 1 3/4" from this corner

Make another mark 1 3/4" from the same corner along the adjacent side

Draw a diagonal line and cut along this line

Repeat on remaining corners

For cutting the diamond on the end of each star point you need a strip of fabric 1 ½” wide. Cut off one corner off this strip at a 45˚ angle. From this cut edge measure 1 ½” up and line the straight edge up with the ruler 45˚ line as shown. This cut will give you the diamond. Don’t forget you need eight of these too.

Use 45 degree marks on ruler to get the best results

To make my feathers I cut a 4” square of both my feather fabric and my background fabric. I mark two diagonal lines and sew ¼” inch on each side of both lines. From here I cut along each diagonal and 2” in from each side. This will give you 8 feather units. To square up the feathers I use my handy dandy ruler to make each unit 1 ½” x 1 ½”. I turn the feather around and cut off my points. To complete just press the seams open. (I have more pictures in this post)

Sew 1/4" from each diagonal line

Square should look like this before you cut it up

Align 1 1/2" mark on ruler to seam and trim, turn around to cut off corners using same ruler line

Press seams open

Be as precise as you can with the feather step. It will be worth it later!

Tomorrow we will get started sewing things together.

Comments

[Edna]

This is wonderful! You don't say though what size to cut the original square for making the kite shapes. I would really like to be able to sew along and make this!

[Erin Russek]

the square is 4 7/8"
sorry

[Margot]

Erin, wonderfulllll!
I'll do my, I hope it works out. Thank you for teaching us such beautiful work.
hugs

[Margot]

Congratulations Deborah!

[Marj]

Thank you for doing the detailed tutorial, I have been wanting to make a feathered star, I even have the book. I will start mine tomorrow morning.

[Beatrice]

Wonderful, I want to ask the size of the square for kite shape, it's here ! Thank you

[Marsha McCloskey]

Thank you, Erin, for such a nice endorsement of my book and your very clear photos and instructions.

We all have our favorite methods, but I'm wondering if you have ever tried bias-strip piecing for the feather squares? Because the seams are pressed open before the squares are cut, there is not distortion from pressing and you don't burn your fingers:) I use the Bias-Square ruler from Martingale or my new Feathered Star Ruler.

BTW The second collection of Feathered Star Quilt blocks will be out in April.

Marsha McCloskey

[Colleen]

Thank you for your tutorial on the feathered star block. I have wanting to try to make one but had not yet purchased a book to work from. I will try your step by step.
Colleen

[Web Development Karachi]

Such a creative and innovative post.

[Web Development]

you did a very detailed tutorial. i like the style, its pretty. i want to try it, but i wish i can do like that, cause it quite difficult.lol.

[Generic Viagra]

beauty, the first picture remind me a Bhuddist art, is something monk call mandala, if you look and compare the image pattern, you find many resemblances.

[Linda]

Used your tutorial and it worked well. Thank you. I LOVE the bias strip piecing for the squares. I couldn't find a measurement for the corner squares but I may have just overlooked it. Thanks again

[Lotte van Oosten @ www.kleurplatenhuis.nl]

Dit is voor het eerst dat ik The Winner and Feathered Star Lesson 1: Old Fashioned Piecing - One Piece at a Time bezoek en ik ben prettig
onder de indruk door de correlatie dat dit stukje behelst met
sesamstraat kleurplaten.

[Celinda]

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