Well it’s week number three. Is everyone still here? I hope so. Trust me, the more you play with these little pieces, the more addicted you become, but if it turns out crumbs aren’t your cup on tea, at least you can say you tried.
Up this week…those stars and hearts. There are LOTS of stars. On the original quilt, I put mainly stars along with the words around the outer border.
I am planning bordering this quilt with stars as well. If that’s your plan, you’ll need around 28 stars depending on how many words you do or don’t add. The original quilt had 63 stars in it. You don’t need to make all of these stars this week but you can if you want. I think the best plan would be to make 6-8. Then each week from here on, you can make 2-5 more stars along with the other blocks we make each week until you get to YOUR desired number of stars. Remember if you hate the stars…you don’t need to quit. You can just add a regular fabric border on.
So to make a star you need to cut out and make 4 flying geese. Follow last week’s instructions for those. Once those are finished, you will need to cut 4 squares. These squares can match the geese fabric if you want but they certainly don’t need to. You will also need to cut a center square. I suggest cutting the square approximately the same length as the geese. (If you want this random, DON”T GET OUT A RULER) Just guess and cut. Here’s what you need for one star.
Let’s get sewing… Sew the pieces into rows.
Sew the rows together. Your seams won’t match. They are not suppose to.
If you want, you can trim up the edges…not with a ruler…just a scissor. Add pieces to the sides however you wish….
Trim the block to 6″.
Repeat. Remember, you can choose how many blocks you want to make. Aim for somewhere between 2 and 28 depending on your schedule or your own personal preference. I love the stars, so I am planning lots. Here are a few of the ones I made.
If my method is a little too random for you and you prefer a more structured look, head on over to Bonnie’s Quiltville site and see how she makes Maverick Stars. These would work just fine.
Now we want to keep this quilt moving along so I am going to show you how to make a heart block today too. Make two flying geese following last week’s instructions.
Sew the geese together as shown. Then cut a square the same width as the geese and however long you wish.
Attach the geese to the square. Then cut a square in half diagonally to make two triangles.
Attach the triangles the same way as you attached the triangle on the flying geese portion.
Sew, trim, press and attach the other triangle.
Sew random crumbs to the piece. Trim to six inches.
Make two heart blocks. Again, the choice is yours. A quilt with hearts around the outside instead of stars would be so cute….You can wrap someone in “love”. Bonnie Hunter has WONDERFUL directions on how to make wonky hearts. Check out her directions here.
That should keep you busy for a couple days…You can take time to go back and check out the progress some quilter’s made last week by checking out the linky tool here.
If you are crumbing along and want to share your progress, feel free to add a link to your blog here in the linky tool below. You can add photos to our Flickr Group or on Jo’s Country Junction facebook page.
I have had such a good time, checking out and seeing what you are sewing. There are a few blogs that I have tried to comment on and for some reason, their settings haven’t allowed me to comment. If you are a blogger, you might want to check your settings and allow people to comment. Next week are are going to break away from flying geese related block and more on to some four patch and nine patch blocks.
Oh, I so want to run to my sewing machine today. The little heart is just too cute. I want to make tons. But for today, I’ll go to class. I’m taking 4 college classes this semester, one of which being math for elem. teachers. The classes are good I’ve been doing this for a couple of years now, but the teacher is a self proclaimed pompus ___! Just my luck. Would rather be sewing, I’ll be back some time during the week.
One a lighter note, I tried to check out everyones link. There is some awesome work going on out there.
Oh Jo! These look like such fun – I set everything up for crumb-along last night so I’m ready to go. I too went to every link to check out my fellow-crumbers work. I didn’t find one I didn’t like waaay better than my own. And I left a comment on every blog that didn’t have restrictive settings. I’m really enjoying this project. Thanks so much for hosting, leading, and adding to our delinquency.
This is like you said, addicting. I have made some flying geese and now I want to start with the stars and hearts.
I’m still following along in spirit – haven’t had time to make any of my own yet because I’m still trying to get caught up on my ministry quilts (now that my Juki is back up and running!) but will get caught up soon!
Well, I’m so over-committed with all my other projects and promises that I’m gonna have to just follow along and live vicariously through the quilts of others! I’m definitely taking notes, though. One of these days a crumb quilt will be happening at my house!
Fun Fun Fun! I love the photo of your stars!
I am totally and completely hooked!! Making these is a blast. I’m glad I decided to play along. And now, to link up, and then go back and play some more.
fantastic! love the fabrics and the wonkiness.
I am still following…..been out of town for 6 days…now I have to catch up!!
Great ideas, so much to do this week with stars and hearts ! Thank you Jo !
I finally got to add my link, although I didn’t see it at first (tried twice!)… the 9th and 10 links are off to the right hand side in the red area so they are hard to see. I have browsed a few early likers already and am anxious to look at the rest.
My link today is to a post about how I screwed up the flying geese. See, I didn’t notice that you were NOT trimming them to match the rectangles they were built on, but were making sure that the added triangles helped form little squares. So when I gathered up all my flying geese to start on the stars, I realized that my rectangles weren’t going to do the job. Tomorrow I’ll make new geese, and work on making them square instead of rectangular.
Love making crumb blocks but can’t get my stars to come out. Glad Cyndi talked about the size. I can see that now. I still can’t get the star triangles cut to a good size, they are too little or too big. If you have a 2″ sq, what size sq would you use to make the triangles for that flying goose?
Sandy, you triangles need to be at least 1/4″ larger when you’ve got 2″ squares–but I suggest to be safe try 2 1/2 ” squares cut in half. All my stars are using 2 1/4″ x 1 1/2″ rectangles, triangles from 2 1/2″ squares, and then 2 1/4″ squares in the stars.
Cyndi, Thanks so much. That really helped. I posted my stars on flicker. The hearts went much better. Thanks again.
I would love to officially join. I did a couple of blocks tonight and I plan to post them on my blog. I need to catch up but I don’t think that will be too hard. It’s early yet!