Fellow Quilters,
It’s time for another great edition of Quilt Block Mania, brought to you by Carolina Moore and Friends! Have you enjoyed the past editions? If you’re a subscriber, they’ll pop into your Inbox the first Tuesday of each month. They are free for the taking so be sure to grab yours while they’re still free.
This is the 5th installment and it’s guaranteed to add some sparkle to the end of 2020 – goodness knows we could all use some extra sparkle this year! Yes, the theme is “stars” and 21 pattern designers have gathered to put their slant on what that means to them. Here’s the list of all 21 designers and the links to their blocks.
Stargazing Sue
Starburst at Slice of Pi Quilts
Massachusetts Star with blockofthmo.com
Nova Star at Always Expect Moore
Nativity Star
Star Bright – Cotton Street Commons
Five Pointed Star at Duck Creek Mountain Quilting
New Year Star at Stash Bandit
Poinsettia Star
Wish Upon a Satar by Heidi Pridemore
Falling Star at Pretty Piney Quilts
Star Splash at QuiltFabrication
Seward Star at Blue Bear Quilts
Moon Star at Perkins Dry Goods
Starburst at Patti’s Patchwork
Cherokee Star
Christmas Tree Star
Christmas Star by Oh Kaye Quilting
Starfish by Appliques Quilts and More
Snowy Star by Seams To Be Sew
Combination Star by Devoted Quilter
Ablaze by True Blue Quilts
For me, of course a star block means a Lone Star! They are my favorite stars, followed closely by split stars. For this particular Lone Star, I dressed it up a bit for New Year’s and added some simple piecing in the corner setting squares. Here is my Starlight block – you can find the pattern here.
This “design element” makes the star look like it’s bursting, or perhaps reaching out to other stars. These corner squares are simple enough to piece with templates, so that’s what I did – 2 seams and it’s done 😊.
The Lone Star is strip-pieced to make it fairly straight-forward, however the size of the strips is not a number found on my rotary cutting ruler (5” ¸ 6 = .8333 – yuck!). How do we cut these strips then?!? I borrowed a technique from quilting icon Marti Michell of From Marti Michell – I used the width of the diamond template to cut my strips. Bingo! Now, the diamond itself is somewhat small so instead of including a tiny diamond template in the pattern I put a long strip. To cut my strips I first taped my long template to the underside of my ruler, abutting it with the edge of the ruler. Then I simply positioned my ruler so that the inside edge of the template was aligned with the edge of my fabric. Easy-peasy!
I taped my cutting template to the underside of my ruler
And no accidentally trimming my template. I also used the template to cut the strip sets into segments.
I used the template to cut my strip sets into segments
And here is a sample throw-size quilt made with 8 blocks linked by the sashing – cool!
Starlight throw quilt 42″ x 60″
To assemble the star I used my oh-so-handy E-Z Miter/Lone Star tool to precisely mark where to align the various block components. In no time at all my block was done. PS. This makes a terrific Secret Santa/stocking stuffer gift for your quilting friends (hint, hint).
Speaking of Christmas, I’m starting my holiday baking this week, making 2 types of fruit cake (traditional dark with brandy, and a light version sans alcohol that was my dad’s favorite). I haven’t made cakes for a few years so I’m overdue. These cakes are NOT the same thing that is sold in grocery stores – no no no! They are very moist and chock full of nuts and candied fruit.
The fruit and nuts for my Christmas cakes – yum!
They are so good that my sons gobble them up – they always have, even as kids! So I may be posting a couple more times this month as I share some recipes. And if you’re not a subscriber to my newsletter (you can sign up at Patti’s Patchwork), you might want to because I think there might be a Christmas gift for my newsletter subscribers soon.
Coming up in January I’ll be teaching three half-day classes at Road to California’s virtual conference. 
Road@Home runs January 20-23 and you can find my classes as well as my trunk show by searching my name on the Classes tab. This is a fantastic opportunity for quilters everywhere to take classes from the comfort and convenience of their own sewing space.
Enjoy today’s blog tour and stay tuned for lots of new stuff and exciting news for 2021 and beyond, coming soon. And some recipes too!
Cheers,
Patti
pattispatchwork-blog.com 
Pretty block! Thank you for the pattern.
I am so glad to see that someone else than me loves fruit cake. I do not like the commercial versions, they are hideous. I also make mine with brandy and lots and lots of fruits and nuts.