Pop Stars Quilt Tutorial

with
Jenny Doan

Pop Stars Quilt Tutorial

Quilt Size: 67" x 76"
Jenny demonstrates how to make a beautiful Pop Stars quilt using 10 inch squares of precut fabric (layer cakes). For this project Jenny chose "A Little Bit of Sparkle" 10" Stackers by Zoe Pearn for Riley Blake Designs. This pretty star quilt comes together quickly, and as you trim your blocks, the scrap pieces can be used to make a beautiful triangle border!
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video transcript

Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. And I’ve got a really fun and interesting project for you today. Let’s take a look at this quilt. Isn’t this great? I love how the stars pop off. I love this little outer border and I can hardly wait to show you how to do it. So to make this quilt what you’re going to need is one packet of ten inch squares. And we have used A Little Bit of Sparkle by Zoe Kern for Riley Blake. You’re going to need some accent fabric, half a yard of white and that’s this right here. You’re going to need a yard and ¾ of the background. And that’s this black is what we’re calling the background. And it also takes in this first little border out here. And then this outer border out here is a nice big six inch border. And you’re going to need a yard and a quarter for that. On the back, we’re using 4 ¾ yards. And we’ve used this nice big floral print and so it’s just a great quilt. It makes a quilt that is 67 by 75 and that’s one layer cake. So remember if you want these to be bigger you just add another layer cake to that and it will double the size. So let me show you how to do this because this is really, really fun. And I love it when things, you know when I’m playing with an idea and when things come together like this, I just love it. That’s my favorite part of quilting.


So what we’re going to do is we’re going to take our layer cake and we’re going to cut it in a diagram like this. Now you’ll have a real diagram in your pattern, your paper you’ll have a real diagram. This was my cutting diagram that I used. But it makes sense to look at it because that’s how we’re going to cut every single layer cake square. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to take this layer cake and we’re going to cut it. And our first cut is going to be four inches. So what we’re dealing with right here is the little pinks. You want to watch those so when you’re cutting the accuracy of the cutting on this is pretty important. So if you lay your square on a mat, look at where the pinked edges come. These come just a little bit over the edge. And so what we’re going to do is we’re going to measure our four inches from just barely on the inside of that edge or else just use your mat for that. So I’m going to cut a, make a four inch cut. The second cut is going to be a little three inch cut. And here we go with that. And we want to just measure this one to make sure that it is also exactly three. And it is, and you can see here we have those little pinked edges just peeking out from behind there and that’s totally ok.


Alright so then we’re going to turn these. And I’m going to make my first cut here again we’re going to do four, three, three. So here’s my four inch cut right here. And then we’re going to do a three right here. Let me move these out to make sure that I’m right on the line. And I am. I’m going to go ahead and cut this. Alright so what you should have when you’re done with this cutting is you should have four of these that are three by four. And four of these that are three by three. And one four inch square for the corner. So these here are where our star legs are going to become. Now this is really interesting. I’m going to use black squares. And I love these. I don’t know if you guys have seen these or used these but we get these little tiny packs. And there are 84 squares in a pack and I love that they’re precut. They come in black and white and beige and all different colors and I use them. I gave you yardage amounts. Remember when you’re calculating your yardage you’re getting 16 squares per strip and I tell you this because when we look at the quilt you’ll see most of our stars are black with black legs. But there’s a few black ones and the black didn’t show up. And when we were designing this it happened just the opposite. I was going to make, all the legs, I was going to make them white. But look how these look. They just kind of washed out. And so for me it was a design choice to actually say nope, this one doesn’t work so well but look how well this works. But obviously it wouldn’t show up on the black. So we decided to, on purpose, take our black ones and put white legs around it. Now when you buy a pattern pack you may or may not use this pack. So you just want to take that into account. If you had one that all the whites, you know, they all look good with a white background or with a whatever color background you choose, that’s great. But if you have some that don’t look so good don’t be afraid to swap those out because it’s a really cool look.


Alright so now what we’re going to do if we are going to take our four, and these are three by four inches. And we are going to take some black corners and we’re going to put those on both corners. So let me just show you, I guess I should show you first shouldn’t I? So what we’re going to do if we’re going to take this one right here and we’re going to sew straight across this corner to corner. So you can draw a line or you can press the line, whatever you want to do, give yourself a sew line, you can use this tape like I use where it shows. And then what we’re going to do is we are going to sew across there. And we’re going to do this to all four of ours one the same side. So we’re going to chain piece these along and I have white thread on here and normally I would use black thread but I’m just going to go ahead and use the white so it’s easier for you to see. And I’m going to sew across here and then I’m just going to feed the next one in. And I’m going to feed all of these in here. And I’m just going to try not to lick my fingers too because I know that is a problem right now. We’re not supposed to be doing that. Alright here we go. Now I’ve done this for a long time so I’ve got a pretty good eye for corner to corner and so, but if you don’t feel comfortable with that don’t, you know, don’t hesitate to, you can use a little chalk pencil or you can use the iron and iron you a little crease. And then without cutting these I’m just going to bring them all back up and I’m going to sew my second line. So you can see I just kind of eyeball it and put my, put my little presser foot about a half an inch, or not, I mean like about, not even ⅛ of an inch away. And then I’m just going to cut in between them. So we’re going to do the same thing and then just by doing that our four legs are finished. And I am going to trim these apart and iron them back. And you can see, you know, it’s not too, it’s not too terribly dangerous but for people who are rule followers it is going to be a tough thing. And honestly, or maybe if you’re a beginner and you don’t want to mess with this part you don’t have to put that, you can actually throw this triangle in the trash. You do not have to keep that and put that little border on. So if this part of it makes you a little nervous just leave it out. It’s a whole new pattern, it’s a whole new something, something. Alright, here we go. I’m going to press these back like this. And I”m going to show you how to make this star. We’re just going to make sure those lay down nice and flat. And we’re going to set these aside for now and we’re going to lay our star out.


So our four inch square goes right in the middle and the legs all butt up next to that right here. Just like that. And then these little three inch blocks go on all the corners. So right here. So the way I like to sew these together is I like to sew this row on top of here like this. And I just sew one row all the way down. And then I’m going to add the other piece to the other side. So I’m going to make sure this matches up. And I’m just going to sew right down the side of these. And because they overlap it gives you a lot of room. You don’t, you’re going to have to work hard to lose that star point is what I’m trying to say. It’s just a great little star for these kind of things. I like these little floating stars a lot. Alright now we’re going to add our other pieces and I’m going to flip this over so I can add them on the other side and go from the bottom to the top. And my pieces will actually be attached with a thread in between so then I’ll just be able to sew these rows together. And it’s almost like, like you’ve cheated because you don’t have to pin because they’re already together. Actually we’re not cheating, we’re just beating the system. That’s what we’re doing, we’re winning the game. Alright now I’m just going to fold these over and sew them on to the middle section. And when I sew these, you want to make sure that, now you want to make sure your blocks nest up. And so you want to put one seam one way, one seam the other and make sure that they nest up and they’re nice and tight. That you don’t feel any fabric in between or any openings in between. And we’re going to do this to the top row over here. See half our star is done right there. Again I’m just going to nest those seams. Make sure they line up real nice, line up this center section. I like to line up as I go along. Alright. And just like that you have this cute little star. So let’s press that. Get that nice, laying out there nice and straight.


Alright. Now you can see if I had put the white legs on this it would just kind of disappear. It would look so dull. So the black really makes that pop so make sure you look at your accent fabric. Now we laid this whole middle out. There are one, two, three, four, five, six, and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, rows so 42 ten inch squares is what we used. And we got all of this from the ten inch square just by the way we cut which I love that.


Now we have these little triangles and let me show you how to make that little border. So they are, they are pretty tiny. And the first triangle you cut off is going to be a pure triangle. Let me just press this so you can look at it. And you’ll see what I mean by pure. That wasn’t actually probably the right word but you’ll see. So the first side of the triangle looks like this and it’s just a straight little two inch triangle. You’ll want to square these up and make sure that they’re two inches. Mine are pretty dang close. And but the second side you’re going to have a little piece of the other star leg on there. So it’s what I meant by not pure. That probably was way the wrong word. It’s got a little piece right there of the other triangle but you pretty much lose that in the seam, you know. So when you put these together. And I matched my colors together like this and put them together. But when you sew that into the seam you pretty much lose that. Now you get eight of these little things from every star block so you get twice as many as you need to border. So I still have this huge baggie of half square triangles that I took off. Now the fun thing about this to remember is that half square triangles there’s a zillion things you can do with these. And I’m just going to save the rest of mine in a baggie. So what I did with mine was I took and sewed them together. I sewed my colors together like this and just made a long chain. See how that is. And then I put all my stars together, put an inch and a half border out here. So a little tiny inch and a half border. I just wanted something to separate that so that these little points would stand out. And then I added the outer border which happens to be black and the black on here just kind of blends with that. If this wasn’t black I would have put another inch and a half border out here just to finish off that look. But because this border is black it finishes it off for us. So I just think it’s a great look. I think it’s a lot of fun. It’s totally no waste because we’re even using these tiny little babies for the border. But remember, if this is something, if the little tiny ones, if that scares you a little bit work into it slowly. Just work into it slowly. Try a few, see if it works for you. If it doesn’t, this is a great quilt in and of itself just with these great, easy, little stars. And you can make the whole thing out of one layer cake. And because we used fabric to make them pop we’re calling it Pop Stars. So we hope you enjoyed this tutorial from the Missouri Star Quilt Company on the Pop Stars quilt.

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