Peace on Earth - A Mystery Quilt - Day 1

Happy December!  I'm so excited that December is finally here, because now I can finally unveil my latest project!  It's a little 18" x 21" Christmas quilt and it's called "Peace on Earth."  But there's a catch... it's a mystery quilt!

Every other day in December, beginning today, I'll be posting about a different component of Peace on Earth  We'll be making some of my favorite quilt blocks, trying our hand at paper piecing, and tackling some simple wool appliqué and embroidery.  Sounds like a lot, but don't worry -- this project is a great skill-builder and perfect for a beginner!

Here's an idea of the palette that we'll be working with:

Peace on Earth will be a scrappy quilt that features a variety of medium and dark blue fabrics with accents of cream, green, red, brown and a bit of gold and black thrown in for good measure.  You won't need large cuts of fabric for this project -- in fact all of these fabrics were pulled from my stash and I don't have more than a ¼" yard of any of them.  But since it's a scrappy quilt (and with scrappy quilts, I believe that more is more) you should obviously feel free to supplement your stash with a trip to the quilt shop!  Early Christmas present?!

Alright, enough talk!  Let's get started...

Day 1!

In the spirit of the season we're starting with the Friendship Star.

We'll be making three 3" Friendship Star blocks -- one gold and two blue.  For each block, you'll need:

Darkest of your dark blue prints for the background:

2 -- 2" x 2" squares

4 -- 1½" x 1½" squares

Gold print (or medium blue prints for blue stars):

2 -- 2" x 2" squares

1 -- 1½" x 1½" square

Assemble the half-square triangles:

1.  Gather two sets of one dark blue print 2" x 2" square and one gold print 2" x 2".

2.  On the wrong side of the gold print 2" x 2" squares, use a ¼" seam marker (my new favorite tool) and a pencil to mark a line ¼" from the true diagonal.  Don't have a ¼" seam marker -- no worries -- just draw the true diagonal and then use a ruler to draw a line a scant ¼" on either side of it.

3.  Layer the gold print 2" x 2" squares atop the dark blue print 2" x 2" squares with right sides together and stitch along drawn lines.

4.  Use a rotary cutter to cut along the true diagonal to make two triangle units.

5.  Press seams towards the dark blue print.

6.  Trim half square triangle units to 1½" x 1½".

Assemble Friendship Star blocks:
1.  Lay out four half square triangle units, four dark blue print 1½" x 1½" squares and one gold print 1½" x 1½" square as follows:

 2.  Stitch half square triangles and squares together into three rows.  For the outer two rows, press towards the dark blue squares.  For the center row, press towards the gold square.

3.  Stitch rows together.  The star block should measure 3½" x 3½" unfinished.

4.  Repeat above steps to make three Friendship Star blocks.

 

That's it for Day 1!  Let the mystery begin...