Friday, July 08, 2016

How to Cut and Sew an Ohio Star Quilt Block

I wanted to make a smaller quilt for the July Island Batik Ambassador Challenge.  I picked out a pattern and decided the fabrics, but when I was at that point happened to see a pretty medallion quilt and thought to myself  "that would be fun!"  Uh-oh!  The idea stuck, so I decided to start out with a center block featuring this adorable reindeer fabric and see how far I get through the month.  Luckily I have EQ7 to help me with the border options, and when I run out of fabric, or decide I've had enough I'll finish the quilt up!

One of my favorite blocks is the Ohio Star, so I decided to make this my block center.  I've made several quilts featuring this block:

This mini sampler quilt has three of them.

The Crown of Thorns block is a variation of Ohio Star.

Here is a mini version with sashing and curved edges.

And this one, set on point is a block of the month quilt I won at a guild meeting many years ago!  As you can see, this is a versatile block and can be used in a variety of ways.  The history of this block dates back to the Civil war, when block quilts began to be popular.  The name came later, and though it goes by some other names Ohio Star seems to be the most popular.

This is a Nine patch block and is made from only 2 units.  4 squares made of quarter square triangles and 5 plain squares.  I chose a three color variation for my Christmas in July quilt.  I wanted to show you how to make this block, so picked some fabrics from my earlier Island Batik boxes to make this sample block in blue.  To make an Ohio Star block you will need:
  • One center square 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches.  (I fussy cut my Christmas in July version!)
  • Four corner squares 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 (background fabric)
  • One 5 1/4 inch square background fabric cut in half diagonally both ways
  • Two 5 1/4 inch squares star point fabric cut in half diagonally both ways
  • One 5 1/4 inch square accent fabric cut in half diagonally both ways

To make the star points, sew the star point triangles to the background and accent triangles to make half square triangle units.

 Make sure you sew with the star point triangles all on the same side - this way they will be opposite each other when you sew the half square triangles together!  Press toward the dark fabric.  Sew the pairs together, matching the center seam. Press this last seam as desired.

 Trim block down to 4 1/2", make sure to center the block and that the seams go from corner to corner!


Lay out your block - background squares on the outer corners, fussy cut square in the center and accent triangles facing the center square.  Sew together, making sure you match your triangles at the corners of the center block.  Now I'll show you my finished center for Christmas In July:


I just love this reindeer print!  I definitely want to add a few more of these to my quilt somewhere...we'll see where I end up going with this.  I'll be posting on Sunday showing how I am designing this in EQ7 - I think it's going to be a nice little wall hanging when I am done.

2 comments:

Charlene S said...

Thanks for the great tut.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the tutorial. I'm intrigued by the crown of thorns pillow. Do you have a pattern for that?
June
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