Make a quilt with stars

Make a quilt with stars for your home or as a gift for family and friends! This project is fast and easy and will make your home shine!

“Piece of Heaven,” my latest quilt, was just published in the November 2022 issue of the American Quilter magazine. You know I’ve had a thing with star blocks, likely because they always bring cheer and brilliance into my life – much needed this year!

“Piece of Heaven” measures 58″ x 58″, and the blocks finish at 24″ and 12″. As you can see, it works very well as a wall hanging, adding color to modern as well as traditional homes. This quilt size is also good as a throw or a table topper – place a vase with monochromatic flowers in its center, and you will have amazing table decor.

For those of us who love free-motion quilting, this project is very manageable to do using our domestic machines. If you need ideas for quilting motifs, the American Quilter magazine always has wonderful ones to try in well-illustrated and explained articles. Or, you can get some of my favorite books, such as 180 Doodle Quilting Designs or Walk 2.0: More Machine Quilting with your Walking Foot (affiliate links).

I worked with the Chickadee collection by Laura Muir for Moda Fabrics. The prints are gorgeous, with lots of texture and dreamy floral motifs. Speaking of Laura Muir, and if you like to make a quilt with stars, my quilt Market Star, published in the September issue of American Quilter, also features fabrics designed by her. I am a huge fan!

This center block was very easy to assemble. The flying-geese and square-in-the-square units, along with some strategically placed strips of fabric, combined to form a modified block and provided more space to show the fabrics. I do love working with fabric collections with motifs in different scales and values because I like to see a contrast in my designs.

The negative space created by those rectangles around the star is expanded by the white corners of the blocks that surround the center as if you had used pinking shears to cut around the background of a medallion you created on paper. It is the ideal space for intricate quilting, though Melissa (from Sew Shabby Quilting) and I opted for a modern, all-over motif.

Most of my quilts are finished with all-over designs. I prefer a softer hand, and, at times, heavy quilting will produce a stiff quilt – great for decoration but not too comfortable as a functional quilt.

Medallion quilt centers do not have to be difficult to make. When designing your own, make sure the center block finishes at a size that can be easily divided into blocks, and the task of figuring out the pieced borders will become equally easy.

The stars finish at 12″, and you know how easy they are to put together. What makes this quilt different is that the corner ones are surrounded by sashing, and the others are framed with dark and light strips and blocks. The square-in-the-square blocks are then stitched to each block and are positioned to frame the medallion in the center.

The fabric pieces are cut into conventional sizes. If you want to make a quilt with stars, choose block sizes that lend themselves to the star grid so you do not need to cut weird sizes and the flying geese are quick to finish. Yes, I did chain-piece them.

I can’t stop staring at those colors because the quilt is right in front of me as I type this post. Beautiful fabrics such as these will brighten the cloudiest of days…

Although this project looks a bit complex, you can already tell it is really simple since it uses basic blocks and piecing techniques, making it a perfect choice for beginner quilters. The straight-strip border is another reason this quilt is a cool beginner project: once you make the center of the quilt top, you are just about done!

This design has a lot of ‘scrappy’ potential, too, so start digging in your stash. Make each star of one color or theme (if you are using novelty fabrics), or customize it for the seasons or holidays by showcasing special prints on the center of the stars. Fun, right?

What a stunning quilt on the cover of the November issue of AQ magazine! If you subscribe to the magazine as I do, you can already download your issue instead of waiting for the printed copy to arrive.

This is it for today. In a couple of days, I will show you three quilts I designed for a Halloween fabric collection that you will love. Until then, enjoy your Monday!