Friday, April 26, 2019

Rocket Star Quilt Along



Kimberly is at the ready to walk you through the process.



I completed a 14" block using the free pattern, but the full pattern includes instructions for multiple sizes including Tablerunner, Lap, Twin and Queen.


You may want to treat yourself to the Creative Grids Starburst 30 Degree Triangle Ruler and Rocket Star Quilt Pattern or Kit featuring Nova fabrics by BasicGrey for Moda. The kit includes the pattern and fabric for the 66.5" x 84" top and binding for $104.98.


A backing set ($56.43) is available as well. If you are unfamiliar with the ruler, Kimberly of Fat Quarter Shop has a video outlining the process. It can be put to use on the Compass Rose, Starfruit, and Cosmos quilts too!


I aspire to make a gold, black and cream quilt from different star blocks, including the Rocket Star. I chose to use black fabrics with metallic gold patterns for the background: one for the inside star (a 4 1/2" square and four stitch and flip 3 1/2" squares) and a floral for the outside pieces.



A text print was used for the diamond sections. I cut two 4 1/2" x 5 1/2" and two 5 1/2" x 4 1/2" to keep the text upright throughout the block. A Bohin White Mechanical Pencil was used to mark my diagonal lines with since I had dark fabric.


The stitch and flip technique is used to create the diamond units, which is so much easier and more exact than cutting odd shapes.


Because I added an additional fabric, half of the background triangles for each of my diamonds needed to be the second fabric. This is how the orientation worked.


Fussy cutting was a bear on this one (terrible pun intended), as I contemplated which direction I should align the bears: heads to middle or toes to the center. At least, I decided to do half and half all bears are upright when the block is upright.


This left enough spare parts to make a star block. There was an unintended conjoining, so I'm calling this peculiar block Bear Crossing. It's a bit bizarre (or bear-zarre), right?


Each corner unit is composed of two identical Background Wedges and one Rocket Star Wedge. 


To account for any innconsistent seam allowances, cutting bobbles, or pressing irregularities the corner units are oversized, and then squared to precisely the intended 5.5" unfinished size.


I love when a pattern accounts for my margin of human error.


The units form a 9-Patch that becomes a star. The points are offset, so there's no aggravating seam-matching of points to drive you to the brink.


Check out the inspirational versions of the Rocket Star Quilt block and quilt on the Fat Quarter Shop blog and social media using the hashtags #fqsquiltalong, #RocketStarQuilt and #classicandvintage. If you make your own rendition, share on Facebook and Instagram with the aforementioned hashtags.

3 comments:

  1. The bears look so cute in this block.

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  2. This block turned out really fun--bears into space with rockets, etc. I also liked seeing the step-outs, so I could follow along; very helpful! I'll look forward to seeing your progress on this project.

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