Ribbon Star Block Tutorial

Hello and happy spring! Welcome to the third tutorial for the  Block of the Month group over on my Facebook page. The theme for the 2018 quilt is "The Sky's the Limit Mystery Star Quilt".  The fabric I am using for this quilt is from the Farmer's Daughter collection by Lella Boutique for Moda. I purchased it from Kerstin over at   Huckleberry Quilting Company.  I love her selection of sweet floral fabrics! She even offers free quilting patterns on her website. I hope you'll go and visit her shop full of happiness soon.

The mystery block for March  is called the Ribbon Star Block; I simply love how pretty it  turned out! I can't wait to try the Ribbon Star in other projects...possibly even a mini quilt.  I think you will find that your imagination goes wild after learning to sew this simple but versatile block. Let's get started!

The Ribbon Star Block

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Here are the pieces you will need to complete one 12.5" (unfinished) block:

• Pieces A, B, D, and E:  Two- 4" x 4" squares of each color;  cut them in half on the diagonal ( this will give you four diagonals of each color, but you'll only need three diagonals of each color  for the block... twelve total are needed)
  
• Piece C:  Four - 3.5" x 3.5" background squares ( I used white for my background)
• Piece F:  Six - 4" x 4" squares (same color as the background); cut them in half on the diagonal ( this will give you 12 diagonals of the background color)
  

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Next: Match the twelve colored diagonals with twelve of the white diagonals and stitch them together. You can "chain stitch" to make this step go quicker.  After sewing the diagonals together, you  will have twelve half-square triangles (HST's) in all. Click HERE for a quick tutorial on chain stitching from the Patchwork Posse.  It's easy and fun!

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My  chain-stitched HST's... aren't they lovely?  I'm sure yours will be too!

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But even though our lovely  piles of HST's are to swoon over, we still need to move them along to the next step.

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Using a hot iron (I  like to use the steam setting), press all the HST's open; be sure to press the seam to the dark side of the fabric so that the seam doesn't show through the lighter background fabric.

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Next, we want to trim our HST's into nice, neat squares. Trimmed squares behave so much more nicely in our finished project than do untrimmed, unruly squares. For my easy, step-by-step tutorial on trimming HST's, click HERE.

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Once all the squares are nicely trimmed, we can lay them out into our Ribbon Star Block pattern.

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The final step is to sew our block in rows as seen above. Press the seams open so that the block lays nice and flat. Now, wasn't that easy and fun? I'm proud of you!

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I just love the elegant simplicity of this block! Not only does the pattern go together quickly and easily, it is a wonderful  choice for  an all-over  quilt design. I hope you have as much fun thinking about the possibilities of this block as I did! Happy quilting!