So, there are lots of ways to make the hunters star block, and for this quilt, were gonna be using foundation piecing. So, the action starts with this triangularshaped unit, and we have the first piece that goes on here. Weve numbered the pieces. And then piece two and piece three form the diamonds. And those are pretty interchangeable. Couldve numbered those either way, so you dont need to sweat the details on which one you get on first. And then the last piece is the large triangle. Mmhmm. Piece one and four are gonna match. Mmhmm. Colorwise. Uhhuh, colorwise. And piece two and three are gonna match colorwise. And those pieces, two and three, form the diamonds that eventually form your star. Mmhmm. Im gonna pull these up here. And so really what were doing is were gonna make that triangle unit in two different colorations. Once with these pieces in red with black points. In the other case, the red diamonds with black for the rest of the fabric. And then, when those two come together, you can already see that im gonna start getting a quarter of the star that i need. Mmhmm. So, lets what color should i make . The red with black or black with red. Lets do red with black. Okay. We start with our red strip. Lets go over to the red strips. And theres a couple different ways to secure it. Youre starting to put your pieces up. This is Something Else really important i want to talk about. Yeah, yeah. Paper piecing is like dyslexia personified. Its true. Everything goes the opposite way. It takes a little yeah. And you need to have some flop room, for lack of a better term. Yep. So, it helps to precut the pieces that youre gonna use. Mmhmm. So, our piece one if we just measure how big that might need to be. Mmhmm. Right. Im not that good. Sure. Give yourself a little breathing room. I gave myself some more room. So, instead, we cut this red piece 2 inches wide. Safe. Give ourselves an extra half an inch that i thought we needed. And for length, 8 inches when we said we just needed 7. Thats a lot of extra. Well, a lot helpful. Absolutely. It saves tears later. Because the first thing were gonna do is were gonna position this piece in the numberone spot, and to do that, you turn it over. Yep. You got to flip because the dotted lines are your sewing lines, always. And having that piece bigger makes that easier. Again, we would look at the same logic for the little diamonds here. Notice that this black piece is considerably larger than what that diamond is. Right, because you have a pretty Long Distance to cover both of the sides of your diamond. And we want extra budge from there. Mmhmm. And then the triangle, again, is quite a bit larger than what it needs to be to cover this area. It just makes life easier. Dont cheat here. Youre gonna trim it all down. Its gonna be accurate. Its gonna turn out nice. So, i always have to stop and think that i want to put my fabric rightside out from the wrong side of it. Its dyslexic. It really is. Like, yeah, you got to take time, think about what youre doing. So, one of the things that helps is to be able to hold this up to the light, and im looking through. So, ive got the pretty side of my fabric its facing out on the wrong side of my pattern, and ive got that extra sticking out about the same on both ends. Youre good on either side. Youve cut it big enough. Now, you can pin, but whats really handy. Right. Is to use a glue stick. And so, what were gonna do is just put a couple dabs of glue and stick that down. Water soluble. Yep. Watersoluble glue. And it doesnt take much. You just need it to hold until you sew it, right. And that should kind of secure it in place while we do our sewing and when we fiddle with it. Mmhmm. Now, this is the tricky piece. You have to stop and think this through. And, yeah, im gonna help you as best i can. Just turn it over. Exactly. And this needs to be angled like this. Right. Right. So, that means this piece needs to hang down. Needs to hang off of this edge, because for it to bend back, and this is where. This is bending back, thats gonna cover it. Okay. Ill need to come down this way. Yeah. This is where the dyslexic and i dont know if two heads are better than one, cause, you know. And thats why i kind of did this little fold. Yes, right. Okay. This is the angle were gonna sew. No, were gonna sew this way. Youre right. Yay [ laughs ] two heads are better than one. This is the hardest step, i think, of this unit. Okay, were gonna go. Yes, thats correct. Im gonna sew this down. Uhhuh. Im gonna sew like this. Mmhmm. So, we just kind of fold that. Now lets look on the other side, and thats gonna be right. Thatll cover it. Good thing. [ laughs ] im glad. Once you get this down once, whats helpful is to repeat this process on lots of blocks. Yeah. Dont go ahead to another step. Do all of these at once so we get into the groove. Then we need to also get this the right position this way. Yes. So, to do that, i actually flip this over. Theres lots of flipping involved in this. Mmhmm. And thats where you can get things wrong. Put a pin through this corner and come over and kind of put a pin through here. So, ive pinned that black on there. I dont know if you got through your red. Take a look. Missed the red. Okay. So, through the red. Through the black. And now were gonna kind of line that up. Mmhmm. Okay. Great. This is lots of fiddling around. Its true. Its true. And we can set that pin like that cause youre gonna sew this way. But i also kind of sometimes like to put another pin over here out of the way were not sewing. Now, ive got that pin in place, and youre gonna sew from this side. Yes. So, youre gonna sew from this point. You can actually start out a little ways from it if you want. Okay. And you can sew on into the seam allowance if you want. Do you sew with the pin, or is that a big nono . Uh, depends on the day. Id probably here because we got the paper and all the rest of it. Yeah, i would probably get it positioned. Yeah. Put my needle down and pull the pin. Okay. Thats what i did. Okay. And i did shorten my stitch length, since you talk about you really need to shorten your stitch length cause were gonna eventually be tearing this paper away, and the stitching is more likely to stay there. Exactly. If its a shorter stitch, it wont tear out as easily. Great. Oh. Wasnt my best sewing down a straight line, but. Pretty close. Close enough. So, we want to sew on that line. Now lets see if we happened to do it right. I know. [ chuckles ] its always a surprise. Were gonna open it out. Yep. And i kind of fingercrease that. Okay. And gosh, it looks like its gonna be fine. Its gonna be okay. So, the next step now is to trim this extra off. And i love how you were doing this before. What i do rotary cutter. No, i use scissors. So, i fold it back on my stitching, and then. Make sure im not cutting anything off that i shouldnt be cutting off. Right. Well, and thats why i love that you do it with scissors because i think thats whats really hard about when youre trimming the paper and trying to get the ruler and the rotary cutter. Its just so much stuff. Im way more likely to not cut it apart if i use scissors, i think. Right. And you want to cut roughly a quarter inch. Doesnt have to be exact because weve done what measuring were gonna do. All right, then i just kind of finger crease that and hold it while im going the rest of the way. And im gonna put another pin in here to secure it. Yeah. Okay. Okay, now were gonna see if we can [ laughs ] the other one, right. All right. So, im pretty sure that the trick is its got to face away from your arrow, so its almost as though were making an arrow going like that. You know, its just this is like the stalk of the arrow, because if we sew that, then. That way. That way. That should work. Okay. Okay. And now we got to do the little pin in the corner. Okay. And i think a little bit of like, there. Yeah. These are key, too. So, were gonna pin that set corner. Want me to help you . Yeah. Ill let you do the pin matching. I find it easier to start that from this side. Mmhmm. Actually, that came through pretty good. So, were gonna line that up. With that square. Mmhmm. Okay. Okay. And if we look, we have a pretty good right angle here. Mmhmm. I should just be able to pin somewhere off over here where it wont bother you too much. And again, now, youre gonna sew with that shorter stitch length. Mmhmm. And i like to start out in the seamallowance area. Okay. Just secures everything a little bit better. And im gonna make sure weve got the iron on here. At some point, were gonna crisp this up. At this point, i like to just do finger pressing. Sure. cause we dont need yeah, youre gonna press them. Oh, i sewed a much straighter seam. I think mom told me you were the one who said some days, you just have bad sew days. Oh, yeah. Just like bad hair days. Yeah, you just cant sew. Then there are days where everything matches. Isnt that nice . But i love those days. They dont happen often enough. No, they dont. All right, so again, lets flip it out. Okay. Make sure its gonna cover everything, and that kind of, again, helps to look at the light. Were a little scrawny here, but i think. Just make it . Think were gonna just make it. Okay, good. And we got these great tv lights to hold it up to the light, but a window would be a good place to go over it. The back. Mmhmm. Make sure this is not gonna cut off. And well trim this down. Mmhmm. And now open it out. Cool. Were gonna make it. We dont have a lot to spare. But thats why you want that extra fabric. Yes. Exactly. All right, and were gonna just take that and adjust it here. Okay. And pin that up out of our way. All right, the last steps gonna be to put this big triangle on. This should be the easiest part of this whole thing. Theoretically. So, its going to go this way. Right. And i think here, if we just kind of look that its sticking out evenly past the paper, okay. We should be fine. You wouldnt fold it in half or anything. I dont think you really need then you have to fold your paper in half. You know, thats why i cut it big. Thats why we cut it big. Exactly. Im just gonna put one here to hold it, but im actually gonna put our pin on this side. Yep. So we know where they are when were sewing. And im gonna take this pin out. Otherwise, the sewing machine kind of wants to hang up on it. Mmhmm. Lots of flipping. Lots of flipping. Were flipping out. So, now were gonna sew this line, and thats the last step. Great. How many blocks i dont know if you know we have to make . Yeah. One, two, three, four, five. Im at six units the square unit. Okay. Must have been by eight units. Okay. That must be when i ran out of fabric. Exactly. Youre like, okay, its border time. Yep. And you can go ahead and sew on up. Sew straight off there if you want. Now were gonna do a little pressing, and then im gonna let you trim this up. Okay. So, well take out the pins. Ill be the presser here. Is our iron heated up enough . It should be. Okay. I talked to it a little bit ago, so. Sweet nothings. So, what im gonna do is just press this and kind of crisp it up. Mmhmm. And i dont think we needed to particularly do any trimming here. We could. If you had a lot of extra hanging out, a big problem here you could trim, but this looks fine. Okay. So, weve got this, so youre gonna want to turn it over this way. Mmhmm. Now i would use the rotary cutter and the ruler, and youre gonna cut on the outside line to trim that unit up. Mmhmm. So, there are really only four pieces to this unit. But as you can see, getting the pieces positioned to create that diamond, thats the tricky part. Thats where youre gonna want to do a little bit of trim matching. Absolutely. And, yeah, do all those units at once, and you just keep firing them through, and then youll get it into an assembly line. Okay. Great. So, ours is looking pretty good. It is. So, we would make lots of red ones. I guess i must have had 6 by 8 48 squares, so i must have made 48 of this and 48 of the black ones. Yep. Its really ingenious. Heres a black unit. This is where the diamonds are gonna start forming. You can see a fourth of the diamonds. For our next step and i would leave the paper on for this step. Okay. And were gonna sew a black one to a red one. And i would do some pinning at the point of that. This is the important spot where that diamond starts. Yes. Because if that gets off. Yeah. To the point where the Diamond Corner of the diamond is here. Uhhuh. And again, because of the paper, it kind of has a mind of its own. Mmhmm. Yeah, you got to really stack up those. And i might like these. I might stick one more pin in up here. Mmhmm. Let me get all the layers. Pick that. How many layers is, like i mean, i get a little nervous when im putting in tons of layers through my sewing machine. I mean, you never really get more than this, would you . Most machines will deal. You know, you can mend blue jeans. Yeah, but dont you need a special foot and stuff . Not usually. Oh, okay. A bigger needle. Okay, right. But not necessarily a different foot. I had one sewing machine, i could mend nylon halters for horses. Really . But it didnt sew cotton fabric very well. [ both laugh ] maybe all the halters. You know, i finally decided it was good for something. Wow. Im gonna stick one more pin in here. And again, that paper makes it not as flexible as fabric. So wereonna sew that together. While marys sewing that, im gonna pull out one of these units that weve made, and heres our red triangle sewn onto our black triangle. And were gonna make units like this. Mmhmm. And when we press, because were gonna end up with eight diamonds coming together, its gonna get kind of bulky. So what we did was we pressed the seam allowance open, at this point. Right. And that helps reduce some of the bulk. Right. And as i join the rows of units together, i continue to do that pressing open, and that helps reduce a lot of the bulk. Quick question for you, liz. The paper is, like, going a little bit like like, the papers kind of bunching up. Yeah. Is that okay . Tear it. Okay. [ laughs ] [ laughing ] i find that helps. Yeah, i know. Rip it with a pin. Sure, sure. Its the paper not having the same give the fabric has. Okay. And so, if the paper isnt wanting to give, sometimes i snip it or tear it or even, like, if you take a pin and score it. Yeah, i tried to do that. I couldnt quite get it. But, yeah, thats great. I just wanted to make sure i wasnt doing something too funky. Youre in great shape there. Great. But, yeah, thats the problem with paper piecing. Yeah. Fabric could give. Paper doesnt. Right. Okay. Got that one done. Seeing if she passed. Oh, i hope so. Now, as a rule, i dont like to press seam allowances open. Okay. And why do you do it here . The bulk. The bulk. Because its kind of a good finger scorcher. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and so, it helps me if i fingercrease it just a little bit. Okay. To kind of encourage them to be that way and then sort of stomp on it with the iron. Mmhmm. Yeah, im less likely than if im trying to force it open with the iron and my fingers. Yeah. So, were gonna press that open. Great. So. The concept will be to just start drawing things. You press them open, so you could make these in blocks. I have to stop and think cause the red and the black go together. Mmhmm. And thats here. You want to put i got to get it this way. Yep. And when ive been looking at this, i just concentrated on that star black, red, black, red, black, red. And i probably wouldnt put this group together because of the same black. I agree. Yeah. So, lets look on the design wall where weve mixed them up a little bit more. Great. And over here, we paid attention to the fact that weve got different blacks and different reds. And here weve got two reds that are opposite each other, so im like, i can live with it. Yeah, absolutely. And when i did this, instead of joining four together, four squares together to make a block, i laid them out like this because it had more flexibility, because, again, when you start over here look, we got another one. Yeah. You start getting another block joining. And if you join these into a group of four youre stuck. Youre stuck with whats gonna come here. Exactly. So i joined the rows then of these square units. You give yourself more to play with. This is a loose one. We have them all clipped together. Theyre all loose. Mmhmm. But i played with these and joined them, made rows, and then joined the rows together. Because the seams are pressed open, it was easy to join the rows because you didnt have to worry about which way they were sewn. Exactly. Well, liz we had the same thought. Its just gorgeous, the hunters star quilt, liz, for your son. Absolutely beautiful. The red and black is very modern, goes great in a contemporary home. Really nice. And i felt like because the design is so strong, i didnt need really special quilting. So, this is just an allover quilting design. Mostly to hold it down. I emphasized the design by putting that narrower black border on and then a wider red border. Felt like it could end there, so i matched my binding to the border. Great. It was fun to make. Fun to do the show today. So fun to do the show, liz. Thank you so much for coming on. Mary grab a stencil. Tips and other useful information coming up next. Our first tip today is from rose haymer or hammer from cameron, missouri. Shes a longarmer. Mary mmhmm. She and her mom are both longarmers, and theyre always dropping pincushions. So rose went to the kitchensupply store, and this is a little deal that goes between your sinks. Oh, great. And you put your little scrubby things in there. And so, she puts it across the metal work on her longarm machine and the pins go in. So, its very handy. She made that little the little pincushions in there. And this is a really nice note from rose. She said that shes hearing impaired and doesnt watch much tv, but when our show comes on, she makes sure to watch, and if she cant see our faces this is the nicest part if she cant see our faces to lipread, she says our demonstrations are so clear that she can see what is going on, so she can just turn the sound off. But thats really a compliment, cause thats our goal. It is. Thats a great goal. And it doesnt matter if we talk too fast, mom, because shes looking for the demonstrations. Thats okay. These skinny strips this is a great tip. Carol crosson from tokeland, washington, says that when she has all these little skinny strips left over from cutting or if shes turning up her blocks, she uses them to tie down plants that need staking in her garden. Oh. Theyre much more gentle and biodegradable, to boot. Thats a great idea. Very nice, carol. This is very nice. This is from sandy lynn from myrtle beach, south carolina. And she says she was guilty of throwing all her sewing machine presser feet in a box. Guilty. Yeah. And she was worried that maybe, you know i know theyre tough, she says, but i was afraid they might get damaged. So she went to the craft store or lost. Or lost. Yeah. And so, look at this. Look at her labeling. I want you to see this. Whoa. So, she made labels, and so she can put every foot in here. She didnt send us her feet. [ laughs ] well, yeah. And so, she can put them back, and she can always find them, so thats really a neat idea. Thats really great. We all have so many great tips to share. Were quilters. We share tips with each other. And, of course, we would love to have you share your tips with us. You can send it to us via the mail. Send it to. Mark with love of quilting and maybe put attention tips on there. You could also use the internet. You can send tips to us on fonsandporter. Com. Click the tips se