Busy Bee: Friendship Star

As a member of the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild I've got my chance to be queen bee for one of the many bees we're doing this year.  I signed up for the Scrappy Bee because we all know I love scrappy.  Here is my step-by-step tutorial for one of the blocks for my turn at the helm of the hive.  The second block will be linked when the tutorial is written.  No matter how you use this tutorial, I'd love to see what you come up with.

The Friendship Star is an easy design to make and resize to fit into many projects.  I'm going to cover how to make one that finishes at 12" by 12" and uses up some scraps and some of these cute little crumb blocks I've got piling up.  At the end I'll give you the measurements for cutting and piecing a block at half this size.

I made my half-square triangle blocks with a crumb block in dark colors and a square of light/neutral.  Both of these squares are 4.5" by 4.5".

To get a square that is 4.5" by 4.5" you will have to mark and sew on the diagonal.

Once you sew on this line you will have one half-square triangle block and the trimmed away pieces can be used to make more crumb blocks.  I used the light/neutral to make a Wonky Star block.

Make four half-square triangle blocks.  I used all different prints for the light fabrics.  This is supposed to be scrappy!  There are other ways to make half-square triangle blocks that have you cut to different sizes to get your finished block.  The goal is a 4.5" half-square triangle block.  How you get there isn't as important at the size.

Grab four dark crumb blocks and one light crumb block and lay out the block.  There are some lighter colors in my crumb blocks.  I just turned them so the blocks would contrast with the light of the half-square triangle blocks.

Sew the rows together.  I webbed the blocks as I sewed the rows.  This method isn't for everyone but it can help you keep your rows matched up.  (Check out Bonnie Hunter's tutorial on webbing.)  Press the seams so they will nest together and sew the rows together.

The block should measure 12.5" by 12.5".

This block is easily made in the smaller size.  I used a crumb block center but the background blocks were 2.5" squares.  Each smaller unit in this block is 2.5" by 2.5".  Block measures 6.5" by 6.5".

The next block will be the Wonky Star block.