Tuesday Tutor Stitch Along - Part Five: Friendship Star

Welcome back to another week of our stitch along. Here's a recap of the previous weeks and our pattern update:

• Requirements
• Rail Fence Block
• 9-Patch Block
• Flip Block
• Pre-order the whole pattern plus additional designs as they are released

For this block you will be making half square triangles (HST). What are half square triangles? A half square triangle is a square that is made up of two triangles of different fabrics. It has a seam diagonally through the middle. You can see FOUR in each of our Friendship Star blocks.

There are various ways of making half square triangles (HST). A lot of quilters like using Thangles. These are paper strips you purchase in packs. They give you sewing lines to sew on and cutting instructions. The best thing about Thangles is you don't have to cut numerous amounts of squares, you only cut strips. Each pack comes in a different size. You can find more information about these here >>

I'm going to show you a different method of making half square triangles. You can make them in any size you like but for our sample block we need 2" finished half square triangles. There is a simple formula I like to use when making them which is: Finished size + 1". Therefore for our blocks, we will need to cut 3" squares. If you were to make a 5 1/2" finished block then you would cut 6 1/2" squares. It couldn't be much easier than that - simply add 1" to the size your square will end up..

Read our lesson "Half Square Triangles" for instructions on how to make these if you are not familiar with the technique.

For our Friendship Star Block you will need fabrics 7 & 8.

We need to make SIX of these blocks for our sampler.

From fabric 7 cut:

• ONE 3" x WOF (width of fabric) strip; cut this into TWELVE (12) 3" squares (for HST)
• TWO 2 1/2" x WOF strips; cut this into TWENTY-FOUR (24) 2 1/2" squares

From fabric 8 cut:

• ONE 3" x WOF strip; cut this into TWELVE (12) 3" squares (HST)
• ONE 2 1/2" x 1/2WOF strip; cut this into SIX (6) 2 1/2" squares

Make TWENTY-FOUR half square triangles following the instructions from our lesson Half Square Triangles or using Thangles. Trim each unit to 2 1/2" square.

Position your 2 1/2" squares and HST in rows as follows making sure the HST are facing the correct way:

Using a 1/4" seam, stitch squares together in rows. Press seams towards the plain squares.

Now join the rows together to make your Friendship Star.

How did you get on? I'd love to hear from you or perhaps you want to share a photo.

Below are some other ideas you might like to try with this block. Instructions for these are given in our pattern: 

Starry Table Runner uses 5 Friendship Star blocks

Stars and Fence quilt uses 18 Friendship Star blocks and 17 Rail Fence blocks.

Both quilts can be found in this week's pattern instructions: Sampler Quilt - Friendship Star

Happy Quilting!