Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC. And I’ve got a great project for you today. Today we are making a quilt using the Rhombus template. And the rhombus template is traditionally used in making the tumbling block quilt. And we have a great tutorial on that. But today we’re going to use this same template to make stars. So let’s take a look at this quilt behind me. Isn’t this beautiful? This is such a pretty quilt, such pretty fabric. And I love stars. Quilters just love stars. There’s just something special about them that we love. So to make this quilt you’re going to use the original pre cut, which is a fat quarter. And you’re going to need 12 of those. And we have a little pack here. And this is Kim Deal’s fabric. It’s called Abundant Blessings and it’s for Henry Glass and it’s just beautiful. You’re also going to need some background fabric. You’re going to need 3 ¼ yards of background and that’s going to be all this and your borders. For your outer border, you’re going to need a yard and a half. And it makes a 6 ½ inch border right here. And the backing is 5 ½ yards to make this pretty backing. So it’s just a fun quilt. It makes a great size of a quilt. It actually makes 70 by 90, so it’s a nice big quilt. And it goes together so easily. I can hardly wait to show you.

Alright so what we’re going to do is we’re going to take one of our fat quarters. Now for those of you who don’t know, a fat quarter is a half a yard of fabric cut at the fold. So a half a yard is 18 inches and then you’re going to cut it at the fold and that will give you two 18 by about 22, 20 inches, 18 by 20 something like that is what size a fat quarter is. And that was really the original pre cut before anything. I like to iron mine to make sure they’re nice and flat because they fold them up and they sit in those packs. And they look so cute. But when you go to cut you want a nice flat surface. So we’re going to press this out. And I’m going to fold it in half like this. And I’m going to cut a five inch strip off of it. Actually I’m going to fold it in half this way. I’m going to cut it the long way. So I’m going to cut some five inch strips off of here. We need two of each blades, we need two of the blades. I’m sorry. We need six. We’re going to get two out of each cut. So let me cut some five inch strips here. Here’s one, two, and one more. Three. Now out of each one of these strips, we are going to get two rhombuses. And I’m just going to stack them up like this so we can cut them all at once. And we’re going to lay this on here like this. See how that fits just perfectly on the top and bottom right there. Then we can come with our rotary cutter and you want to cut your little notch and cut up on this side. And then we’re going to come over here and we’re going to cut this. And cut your little notch. This template was made to fit the ten inch squares. And so it just fits perfectly in that five inch strip, just like that. Clean that up a little bit. Alright.

So this is the shape we’re looking for and you need six for each star. Now for your background right here you’re also going to cut a five inch strip. Now on the rhombus template we have to have triangles to finish out our block. And so the legs of the star are only with color. Everything else on this whole quilt, except the border, are these triangles. Now right here it says the line up edge to cut the triangles so we give you that information. And we’re going to lay this on our five inch strip. So I’ve taken my background, cut a five inch strip. And I lay this line, line this edge up to cut the triangles. And we’re going to cut here like this. And cut across this top like this gently and cut down this side. Then when we’re ready to cut our next set of triangles we’re going to flip this template around here. And then this one is already lined up on that side. And again we’re just going to set our, our line to the edge. Line up your edge with the edge of the fabric. And it looks like I can pull this over right to that edge just like that. And then I only have to cut this other side here. There we go. And cut my little point off. Trimming off those little points is going to help you line it up. You’re going to get a big stack of these. You need 12 for each star. And let me show you how to do this, this is really fun.

So you’re going to take each of your pieces and we are going to put a triangle on this side and a triangle on this side. This is the little piece that we’re going for. So we’re going to do that. And I have some started over here so I’m going to use these over here so I can finish out my star with the same color. So I need to make one of these. And what I’m going to do is I”m just going to lay my piece. And it should square up on this end right here. And square, you know match up perfectly on the sides with that. Now we’re going to sew, a quarter of an inch down this side. So we’re going to go over to the sewing machine and do that. Alright now I’m just going to make sure I’m on my quarter of an inch line, sew right down here. Then we’re going to press this back. Now the triangles are the same on all three sides. You don’t have to worry about getting that turned at all. So now we’re going to put the next triangle over here like this. And lay it on, match our edges. And then sew that a quarter of an inch right down that side as well. Alright, you’re going to do this six times. You’re going to get six of these little, the little star legs and your triangles sewn together.

So then what we’ve got to do is we lay out our six. I’ve already sewn a couple. And this is all straight line sewing. That is, this is the cool thing about this template. This is traditionally one where you have to, you know you have those little partial seams, no partial seams on this. So what we’re going to do is lay these together like this. We’re going to sew these just by laying them on top of each other and a quarter of an inch right down the side. So let’s go to the sewing machine. Let’s make our quarter of an inch happen here. And I am making sure that my little seams line up along that edge. I’ll show you that a little more when I get back over here to the table. Alright let’s press this open. And what I’m talking about here, now it won’t matter what side I put this on because we’re making a half a star. And so when I put these together, this is the line you want to match up. So I’m just going to line this up here like this, like that. And then I just feel to make sure these are nested. And if one of these seams needs to roll the other way, that’s ok with me. And you can look and see that it’s like really close together right there. And we’re just going to line them up. It should be, you know if your quarter of an inch is pretty good these should line up with their little blunt ends, they should line up just about perfectly. This is really an easy, you know once you understand what’s going on, it’s pretty easy to make it, make it fit together. Alrighty. Let me press this out. See how we did. Not too bad. It could be one hair perfect. But it’s ok. It’s good enough for me.

Alright so here we go. And we have a half a star. You’re going to make two halves of stars. And the stars are going to go together like this. But you’re not going to want to put them together yet because now this goes together in rows. So you’ll lay out your stars so they match up. But it sews together in rows so let me show you what I’m talking about here. So just like we sewed, we sewed our edges together we’re going to sew half stars together just like this. See how that’s happening here. Long rows. And these are straight seams. So in our star, this piece here, when we get ready to sew it to the next star we’re going to lay it, it’s going to lay on here like this. One star is going to go up. One star is going to go down and they form the whole star. It’s just a straight seam again that you sew. And you sew this together. So let’s look at what happens when we lay this out. We’ve got three across. And I’m going to flip this one right here. Well no, I’m going to leave this just like this. I have to see what I’ve got to match to it. So this one is going to match up here. And you’re going to do this on your design wall. And this one is going to match up over here. And then we begin our next star down which I wouldn’t choose the exact same color. I would do something else in here. So then this row right here, this row is sewn together. This row you’re just going to lay these pieces right on here, stitch them down, sew them together and add this one on over here. Alright, then these rows get sewn together to form stars. So then when we go to put the next row on obviously this is going to be a finished star. And then we’ll have our two halves for the other one. So let’s look at the quilt. So these are your rows right here, half star blocks. The second row, we match up the red. And we have the half, the top half of the yellow and we match it up. And we just keep doing that all the way down.

Now one of the things to note on this quilt is when you’re ready to add the borders you have to, you have to just cut these right here. You have two triangles right here and we’re only using a half a triangle on our border. We want a nice straight border. So what we’re going to do on our border is we are going to lay our ruler and we’re going to come in. Let me do this from the other side. It will be so much easier for my left hand. So we’re going to lay our ruler right on here. And I’m going to look at this right here. I want at least a quarter of an inch because I don’t mind if my points touch but I want at least a quarter of an inch. So I lay my quarter of an inch. Make sure it’s sticking out from that seam right here, a quarter of an inch over. And then I’m going to make sure I’m lined up straight. You know have my star. My row is on there pretty straight. My ruler is matching up pretty good. Make sure I have a quarter of an inch. And then you’re just going to trim these off like this. And you have a straight edge to add your border to.

Now the way this quilt came out, it came out a little longer than it was wide. So we actually added wider borders out here on the sides and a smaller border on top so that it would just kind of square out a little bit, you know. Sometimes when you make a quilt it turns out real narrow and we like them a little more, I like them rectangular but not like runways you know. And so you just want to watch that. So it’s just as easy as that. You’re going to put it together. You’ll add your inner border, and you’ll add your outer border and you’ll be ready to go. Now because, you know I just love this and I couldn’t leave it alone, guess what. We have one, a small one for the charm pack that we’re coming out with or that’s actually out, already out for you. And look at this one. Same exact thing only we did it tiny, small with the small five inch block. Isn’t that the cutest thing? So it’s just fun to do. It’s quick and easy. It’s done exactly the same way. You’re just going to use this. There will be a line on it so you can cut your little triangles. And you are good to go.

So I really enjoyed making this. I love finding new uses for our templates. And this idea actually came from one of the girls who sews with me. So we hope you enjoyed this tutorial on the Rhombus Star from the MSQC.