HeartString Stars

Here’s a quick look at how I’m making these HeartString Stars.

I NEVER piece our HeartStrings blocks on paper — I always use muslin. Except for these blocks where I used several old magazine pages. Shorten your stitch length and the paper will come off easier.

Cut paper 7 inches and piece strings onto it, trim the block to 6.5 inches.

From background cut 12 squares that are 3.5 inches

From star fabric ( you can use one fabric, or go scrappy and use several fabrics in the same color family) cut 4 squares that are 4 inches; cut them in half on the diagonal. I plan to use my 3.5 inch finished triangle GO die to quickly cut my star points.

You will layer a triangle on the top of a square, right sides together, and sew using a quarter inch seam. I just eyeball the placement. You will make 8 triangle squares for each star block.

Sew and trim the background square equal to the seam allowance with scissors.

Press open and trim off the excess triangle fabric on the top and side. Block should measure 3.5 inches.

For each star you will use one string block, 8 of the triangle squares, and 4 background squares. Assemble the star block.

Here’s my finished block
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And here are the four blocks I made to send to Bev in Maine. You’ll notice that all my star points aren’t the same size and in fact, the blue points are the largest.

Make a test block before cutting everything!

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In the quilt I’ll be making myself, my blocks will be scrappier – rather than using one background fabric in each square, I’ll use many. I also like the green stars where I’ve used different fabrics for all the star points but in a scrappier version the star points might stand out better with just a single fabric like the red and blue stars shown above. You can decide which you like better.

I may even alternate a light background with a dark one. If I go this route, my dark and my light backgounds would be scrappy. I’m just too lazy to color all the squares differently.

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Or maybe I’ll go with light backgrounds and sash the blocks like this drawing. I won’t decide until I’m ready to start the quilt.

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4 thoughts on “HeartString Stars”

I like the last version with light fabric in the center of the sashing and other colors on the outside best but also like the alternating dark and light backgrounds. I think I will make the sashing quilt with scrappy star points perhaps scrappy dark star points but perhaps in Navy scraps. I like Navy scraps for star points and have a quilt with them and scrappy squares between the stars.

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