This week we are sewing our first set of blocks. If you are making the 20 block size - you will make 5 blocks. If you are making the 30 block size - you will make 6 blocks.
And, if you are making a Scrappy Star Style quilt, then you will follow this slightly adjusted schedule for the SAL:
Week 3 - Sew ALL HSTs (For Medium Throw 20 sets = 160 HSTs// Large Throw 30 sets = 240 HSTs)
Week 4 - Trim all HSTs + build your block piles
Week 5 - Medium Throw make 7 blocks/ Large Throw make 10 blocks
Week 6 - Medium Throw make 7 blocks/ Large Throw make 10 blocks
Week 7 - Medium Throw make 6 blocks/ Large Throw make 10 blocks
POST TO INSTAGRAM
Week 3: Post a photo of your first blocks or your HSTs if sewing scrappy. Be sure to use the #staradventuresal hashtag to be entered into this week's giveaway.
You must post by Thursday October 12th at 11:59pm PST to be entered into the Week 3 giveaway. Each week starts fresh on Fridays and the previous week's post won't count for the next week's prize.
The weekly prizes will include a custom 12 piece FQ bundle curated by Meghan,Ponderosa Thread Gloss kindly provided by Paige Anderson, and one other notion gifted by Then Came June! You will be contacted when you win and then you get to let me know the color palette you are interested in - all blues, neutrals, rainbow, etc. And I will take your idea and build you a bundle! You get to also tell me if you want all solids, all prints or a mix. I can't wait to specially curate a new bundle each week! And yes, this is open to International participants.
Here is a photo of the Week 1 Giveaway Winner's bundle. She wanted a mix of solid and print and usually sews in golden/mustard tones with blues and pinks. I loved curating this!
INSTAGRAM LIVE THIS WEEK
Last week I hopped on an IG Live and you can watch that here. I will get on IG Live again this week to sew one Star Adventure block with you! It will happen on Wednesday, October 11th at 11am PST. This live will be saved to my Instagram grid for future viewing.
LET'S SEW!
First, let's chat about a few reminders and suggestions while you are working through your Star Adventure blocks.
After sewing multiple of these quilts, I recommend using a SCANT 1/4" seam allowance. This is truly just a smidge smaller than the normal 1/4" seam allowance. This allows for better pressing/nesting and accurate trimming. If you'd like to know more about scant seams,Brittany of Lo & Behold Stitchery has a great blogpost all about them.
Be mindful of the pressing information. I press all my HST seams open for trimming. I do press to the side when assembling the rows together in each block. So in each block there is a mixture of open and to the side pressing.
Be mindful of directional prints if you are using them. I have a short tutorial below about how to prioritize one directional print in each block for both the Star and the Background fabric.
Trimming your HSTs accurately is essential in creating beautiful, crisp Star Adventure blocks - another short tutorial below.
We personally batch sew our Star Adventure blocks each week instead of working block by block.
TRIMMING YOUR HSTs - A tutorial
For this short tutorial, I am using different cut and trim measurements than what is in the Star Adventure pattern. But all the same rules apply regardless of the sizes.
We will be sewing 8 HSTs at a time. My starting two large squares are 7 3/4", we will trim to 3 1/2" and then the finished HST size is 3".
First you will want to mark your diagonal lines for sewing and your vertical and horizontal lines for cutting. Make sure you do this on the wrong side of your fabric.
Next, pin your squares, right sides together.
It may be hard to see but this is where it's really important to sew a SCANT seam. That means my drawn line is JUST inside my 1/4 inch guide on my foot. That means I am sewing just a tiny bit smaller than 1/4" seams. And you will sew this way alongside each diagonal seam.
You can see here that the edge of my ruler is placed on my drawn line and my seam is just inside the black 1/4" line. Also, ignore my broken ruler tip. ha.
Now you will cut along the diagonal drawn lines to create 4 sections.
From here, you will now cut along the other vertical/horizontal drawn lines and you officially have 8 HST!
For pressing, I recommend opening the seam first with your finger so it's easier for your iron to guide along without pulling or snagging the fabric or seam. Press open.
Look at that pretty pretty HST. Some patterns write that you just snip the dog ears (tiny triangles at the end of the seams) but I prefer to actually trim up the entire perimeter of the HST.
Remember we will be trimming to 3 1/2" (these are NOT the measurements in the pattern) and I have laid my ruler on this one with the lower left corner and sides perfectly lined up on the 3 1/2" mark on my ruler. I prefer to see how much "extra" will need to be trimmed off by now looking at the top right side. And then I adjust to split the difference between both sides.
Now you can see on the ruler there is a bit more than 3 1/2" of fabric sticking out past my trim marks AND there is a small amount sticking out above as well. From here, I trim.
As you can see, it's not a lot but each small 1/16 will add up greatly in an overall quilt.
Now you rotate the HST 180 degrees and again line up the now clean trimmed line with the 3 1/2" mark on the ruler and trim the outer excess.
And here is the final trim excess.
Yay! A perfectly square 3 1/2" HST.
DIRECTIONAL FABRIC IN A STAR ADVENTURE BLOCK - A tutorial
I love sewing with directional fabric as I love classic stripes and grids but I know sometimes it can feel overwhelming to keep the print in its directional form. This tutorial will show you how to keep ONE fabric within a Star Adventure block directional. I would not recommend pairing two directional prints together.
In our Medium Throw quilt we are making, we have some directional prints. I will show you how to keep the print directional when it's the Star AND when it's the Background fabric.
You will start with marking one of the fabrics on the wrong side with the lines needed for sewing and cutting. And then you will pin them, right sides together.
Sew a scant 1/4" seam along each diagonal seam.
Once you cut and press your HSTs, you will see that 4 of them will lay horizontal and the other 4 will lay vertical.
After trimming, it's time to lay them out. For this photo, we are making the Star the directional print. So I chose my center square to have the lines go up and down. Now, I laid out my HSTs and moved them around until all of them faced the same way directionally.
Now we cut some extra squares so I could show you how to do this with the Background cuts. We swapped out the center square with the white fabric and rotated each HST 180 degrees. Now the stripe fabric is acting as the Background and the white fabric as the Star Points. From here, you will orient your 4 corner background squares to all face the same direction. Boom!
BATCH SEWING OUR BLOCKS
I snapped a few photos of our process of batching sewing the 6 blocks we are making that are the Mixed Star Style. Before I remembered to take photos, I had already sewn all 6 sets of HSTs and trimmed them. When you are making the Mixed Up Star style, it is actually pretty simple to keep yourself organized. The background squares will match one side of your HSTs. So to keep yourself straight, make sure you pile your center star square cut with the 4 background cuts that match the starting pile. So below you will see that I have my block piles still together, even after sewing my HSTs.
Then, I sew all of my HSTs together to make the star points. For me it was easy to remember which way to sew them together because all the blue fabrics are my backgrounds in each block. So I made sure I was sewing the blues together for each center seam.
Then I pressed all those seams open and I stacked all six quilt block piles on top of each other and worked in another batch process. So I went and added one background square to keep of their matching star points and then one side of the star point to the main center square.
Then I clipped them and relaid them out in their correct order and finished sewing the other side of the background squares and star points to create the 3 rows needed for the Star Adventure block.
For this pressing, I press my seams to the opposite sides. The top and bottom row, the seam gets pressed toward the background squares. For the center row, I press the seams toward the center star square. This way each of those seams nest.
Then boom!! All six of my blocks are done! I am so happy with how these are turning out.
And here are Alysson's first five blocks. You can see she was able to prioritize the directional prints in her blocks. Her blocks make me want to sit by a fire with a cup of coffee or honey lemon water. So cozy!
THE WEEK TWO WINNER
Congrats to Bekki of @bekkiwade, you've won the Week 2 prize bundle! You've won a custom made FQ Bundle by me, thread gloss byPonderosa Thread Glossand a Melody Miller reusable Meori bag!!! Please email us at hello@thencamejune.com so we can start working on your bundle!
