Just in time for the 4th of July!!

Red, White and Blue Friendship Blocks

This is a clever pattern that is free from the Fat Quarter Shop but I tweaked it a bit!

The 42 friendship stars nest together.  I'll show you some pictures of how it is put together in the following images.

Here is a picture of the free pattern and you can click on this link to go to the Fat Quarter Shop and get your own.

I started with a dark and a light 15" square of fabric and sewed around the perimeter and then sliced diagonally twice which gave me four 13 3/4" half square triangles (HSTs).  According to the pattern you take your HST and cut it in half once so you will get 8 pieces which will now make two friendship stars, a darker one and a lighter one.

I started making more and more stars.  I wanted mine to be queen size so needed 42 stars. 

 I laid them in pleasing array alternating light and dark stars.  I put them on point to get them to look like friendship stars.

I started sewing them into blocks and laid them on point.

If you set them on point, you will need some setting triangles.  It went together fairly quickly.  I think I completed it in about a month.

Now I'm on to another patriotic quilt!  I found an old blog post at Confessions of a Fabric Addict in which she held a sew along.  She offered a coloring page so you can fill in your own colors and you can get it at the link for her blog.  I love Edyta Sitar's medallion quilts and decided to do this emulating Edyta's Liberty Star (the link goes to where you could see and buy her pattern or kit) which is similar but I find this kaleidoscope layout more pleasing and since it is a 9 patch, I think it'll go together quickly once I start cutting and sewing.

You need a kaleidoscope ruler and I have two but am using the Alaska ruler.  Edyta has a video showing how to use the ruler and there are also instructions that come with the ruler.

Hopefully I'll be back soon with another patriotic finished product!