Our Final Block of This Year's Perfect Paper Piecing Group

This is a little late getting up, but here we go!  Woven Star, our final block this year.

The Woven Star.  The beautiful block pictured above, featuring Kaffe Fassett fabrics, was created by one of my students, Sandy Simester.

Now there are some tips to make this block easy.  Get yourself a box of color crayons or colored pencils.  You want to be able to identify where your fabrics will be placed in your block.  Trust me, this is an important step with this block.  It looks easy, particularly after some of the other blocks that we have made, but there is no room for messing up on this one.

You will need to print out 4 copies of the blocks.  Now the blocks are too large to print on one sheet, so you will need to match them up, tape them and then use them to paper piece as we normally do.

If you have access to legal paper and a printer, tape one copy together and print them out as needed on your copy machine.

If not, you will be making 4 copies of each piece and taping them together to form 4 triangle components that will form your block.

As we have done before, please trim the excess paper, leaving about a 1/2 inch extra all the way around.  Remove your thread from your machine, including the bobbin thread.  Stitch all your lines to pre-perforate your paper pattern, making it easier to see where your fabric will go, easier to fold and eventually easier to remove.

Lay your pieces out as shown above, this is how they will form your block once they are trimmed down.  Select your fabrics, match up a color crayon and mark each of the areas of your block with the corresponding color.  Looking at the block above, you see the pink color in the small #1 triangle, looking to the right, moving counter clockwise, you can see that pink again on the next component block in the triangle #4...I want that area of both of those blocks to be the same color.  Study the block at the beginning of this blog and you can see how the colors move around the block.  If you do not mark your pattern pieces and carefully assemble them, you will not be happy with your results.  Take your time.  Check and double check that you have your pieces in the right place.  As you can see, it's not a difficult block to sew at all, it's only complicated by the placement of the colors.  Here is another example below.  Think about your colors, your textures, what you want to express in your block.  You might select your background fabric and then weave 4 other folded fabrics together and lay them on top to audition them.

Before you stitch your 4 component blocks together, Trim the excess fabric and lay them out on your mat to make sure that you have everything where you want it.  Stitch 2 of the component block together, and do the same for the other two, press your seams in opposite directions and then nestle your center seams as we have done in class before.  Stitch the 2 halves together and press your seam open to reduce the bulk.

Here is what this block might look like replicated in a quilt top.  I have put a link at the top of this blog to the patterns and there is one at the side as well.  Have fun and be sure to share what you make!  Remember, the block will finish up at 12.5"