Friendship Star Baby Quilt

Isn’t this Friendship Star baby quilt just the cutest?

Back in February we had a large snow storm and it coincided with the a 3-day weekend. I hunkered down and do lots of scrappy sewing, in between multiple snowy walks each day. The Friendship Star Baby Quilt is the result of that lazy weekend.

I had a bunch of itty bitty half square triangles in a bunch of off-whites and blacks, left over from a project a few years ago.  I paired them with off-white center squares and black corner squares to make Friendship Star blocks that measure just 3½” unfinished.

That’s the short version of how to make the building blocks that went into making this Friendship Star baby quilt, but I also wrote up a full tutorial with step-by-step directions and photos of each step.  You can also find information there on how to make these blocks in a variety of larger sizes.

This Friendship Star baby quilt uses 130 little star blocks and finishes at 36” by 45”.  In addition to the star blocks, you will also need 20 rectangles 2” by 6½” and 20 rectangles 2” by 9½”.  I made my rectangles from the same variety of black fabrics as my background fabric, but I think it would also be really interesting to use fabrics in some other color, to add a pop of color to an otherwise neutral quilt.

Friendship Star Baby Quilt – Star Pairs

The first step in turning these star blocks into a friendship star baby quilt is to sew 100 stars into 50 pairs.

To help make the seams nestle well together, and to reduce stretch, turn the second square 90*, so that seams are perpendicular to the first square (seen here in green lines)

Pin seams and sew squares together with a ¼” seam allowance.  Press towards the square with the horizontal seams.  Make 50 total.

9 Star Block

Using the remaining 30 squares, make rows of three, taking care to alternate vertical and horizontal seams.

For 20 of the rows, the two outside squares will have horizontal seams (top row in photo below) and 10 rows will have outside squares with vertical seams (bottom row in photo below)

For all thirty rows, sew the third block to the pair and press towards the square with the horizontal seams.

Place three rows together, using two of the twenty as the top and bottom row, and one of the ten as the middle row.

Sew rows together to make Block A, the 9 Star block.  Make 10 total.

4 Star Block

The second block, Block B, uses the remaining 20 pairs of star squares and will put the pairs together into a block center made of 4 stars.

Orient the pairs so that the seams are alternating horizontal and vertical seams. 

Pin all seams and sew together with a ¼” seam allowance.  Make 10.

Place a 2” by 6½” rectangle to the left and right of the block center, and a 2” by 9½” rectangle to the top and bottom of the block center. 

Using a ¼” seam allowance on all seams, sew the two side seams and press towards the outside of the block.  Then, sew the top and bottom seam and press towards the outside of the block.

This is Block B, the 4 Star block. Make 10 total.

Putting the Friendship Star Baby Quilt Together

Alternate Blocks A and B to make 5 rows of 4 blocks each.  Sew blocks into rows, and sew rows into the quilt top. 

Baste, quilt and bind as desired.  Becausee these blocks are made up of so many tiny little pieces, I recommend lots of quilting. This keeps the whole quilt secure and less likely to come apart with repeated washing and drying.

Normally I wait until a quilt has been quilted and bound before sharing a tutorial with you, so that I can share the completed project with you.  But I haven’t actually quilted this little guy yet, because I’m still trying to decide how to quilt it.

I’ve definitely decided on diagonal lines for quilting, but what I can’t decide on is thread color.  Black, so that it is invisible in MOST of the quilt?  Cream, so that it pops?  Some other color, just to give the quilt a bit of color?  I really don’t know.  This quilt top can stay in the to-be-quilted pile until I figure out what I want to do.