{Classic Quilt Blocks} Friendship Star - A Tutorial

Classic Quilt Blocks have been sewn for centuries, are easy to recognise and are every quilters favorite. Let's celebrate these gorgeous blocks and add them to our quilting projects!

It's tutorial week in my Classic Quilt Blocks series, and I'm really excited about this one. I've been pondering all week on the lack of antique Friendship Star quilts and I'm even more determined to encourage you to sew your own.

Today's tutorial is quite simple and the only thing I wanted to mention was the HST units. I always cut my pieces larger than required and trim the HST's once they're sewn. No matter how accurately we cut and sew, they'll be inconsistencies and this method ensures your HST's are accurate and straight every time.

Take your time when trimming the HST's - you don't want to lose any points. Use the sewn diagonal seam and the markings on your ruler as a guide or use a Bloc Loc ruler (if you have one) to trim the units accurately.

The following tutorial will yield a 6" (finished block) and at the end I've provided a Cutting Chart for six sizes to help you cut and sew the Friendship Star block for an array of projects.

I hope you had some time to plan a few blocks using last week's colouring sheet, and you're all ready to sew. Grab your fabrics and let's go:

From your background fabric cut:

• 4 x 2 1/2" squares (A)
• 2 x 3" squares cut diagonally to yield 4 triangles (B)

From your print fabric cut:

• 1 x 2 1/2" square (C)
• 2 x 3" squares cut diagonally to yield 4 triangles (D)

• With right sides together, sew a background (B) triangle to each of the print (D) trinagles, along the long sides and pressing seams towards the print triangles.
• Carefully trim each HST unit to 2 1/2" square, ensuring you don't cut off any points or seam allowances.

• Arrange the background (A) squares, the print (C) square and the four HST units into three rows of three squares as shown in the photo above.
• Ensure the correct orientation of the HST units prior to sewing.

• Sew the units together into the three rows, pressing the seams in alternate directions for nesting.

• Carefully matching all seams, sew the three rows together, pressing the long seams open to yield one Friendship Star block which should measure 6 1/2" square.

Tada! One gorgeous Friendship Star block to use in future projects!

I hope you had fun sewing along with me. It is a simple block, but I love how the star dances on that background fabric. So fun and so pretty!

I've put together a Cutting Chart of six sizes for you to use for standalone quilt blocks, borders and cornerstones. Simply click on the link to download and print the chart or right click on the photo below and save it to your computer:

Regardless of the size, the blocks are sewn together in the same way, but the cutting requirements will be different. I've also included the trimming size of the HST's to make it easy for you, so have fun!

Next week I'll be sharing some variations of the Friendship Star block and showing you how these blocks look in quilts. I'm hoping these examples will inspire you to plan your own Friendship Star quilt.

Happy quilting :)