Ta da!
A couple of years ago I was working at a fabric store and late in the day a customer came in–as many do–with an unfinished quilt block in her hand. She needed another matching fabric.
It was a 12 x 12-inch piece of muslin with a folded star taking shape in the center. She found her fabric, and while I cut it for her I said wanted to make one of those sometime. Enthusiastically she said, “Oh you should. It’s really easy!”
Yeah, right.
We were slow that evening so she placed her block on the cut counter and proceeded to tell me how it was constructed. There were criss-cross lines through the muslin and little tick marks along each line. As she got into the explanation I grabbed a scratch pad and quickly sketched out what she was telling me.
Well I knew I had to make one of these quickly or I would forget what all the chicken scratches meant. I went to one of my scrap stashes and gathered up a small pile of complimentary calicoes.
It took a couple of weeks for me to get to it, but with a handful of accurately cut squares, some ironing, and the chicken scratches transferred to a twelve-inch square of muslin, I pulled it off.
The finished star ends up in the shape of an octagon and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it. It was too pretty to put under a hot pan, so I found a few more pieces of fabric, squared it up and made it into a pillow.
I had an old throw pillow that had seen better days so I rescued the homemade pillow form inside. After a trip through the washer and dryer I gave it new life inside my folded star pillow. I didn’t take pictures of the back, but it overlaps like a pillow sham. It’s an 18-inch pillow so part of a half-yard of gold cotton did the trick.
Next one of these I make, I’ll take pictures of the process and show you how easy it is.
But in the meantime, if you’re in a hurry to make one, there are tutorials out there, or pester me and I’ll make another one sooner rather than later.
You can turn it into a pillow, a hot pad or trivet, a table runner, or even a quilt. It’s up to you. Hope this inspires you to make one of your own.
And many thanks to Madelyn for showing me how!
Jan