Welcome to week two of the North Star quilt along!

There are so many great test blocks showing up on Instagram!  Loving all the Christmas versions I’m seeing 🙂  I’m hoping to start my Christmas version this week.  Trying to make two versions might have been a bit ambitious though…haha.

The Quilt Along

Starts: October 16

Duration: 6 weeks

Materials needed:
North Star Quilt Pattern
Fabrics: You will need 24 fat quarters for this quilt or 16 fat quarters + 16 Fat Eighths
Accent Fabric and Background fabric.

How to Participate:
The quilt along takes place on Instagram using the hashtag: #northstarqal

Include the hashtag in your captions so we can all see your posts. Browse the hashtag to see what everyone else is up to!

Stay up to date:
An e-mail will show up in your inbox on Monday morning with the weeks prompts. A blog post will also go up on Monday morning. There may be a few extra videos and tips and tricks in the e-mails so be sure to be signed up! (Sign up here)

Week Two

• Cut out your fabrics if you haven’t already and like to pre-cut.
• Make 3 blocks

We start making our blocks this week!

Trimming Half Square Triangles

These blocks go together pretty easily with half square triangles.  I don’t really have any fancy tools for cutting half square triangles but I do love this little Fiskars swivel mat!  If you get nothing else for trimming HST’s I recommend a rotating mat like this.  Not only does it make trimming easier, it prolongs the life of my regular mat so I’m not trimming on it so much.  I’ve had this same one for years and it’s still holding up great.

A lot of quilters rave about the Bloc Loc HST rulers too.  I’ve never used them as they are definitely for HST’s that are pressed to the side.  I tend to press my half square triangles open whenever possible.  The Bloc locs aren’t cheap either so there is that.  I believe you will need several sizes depending on what size you are trimming to.  But if you find your self using half square triangles a lot in your quilting these rulers come highly recommended.

Right now, the Fiskars swivel mat and the Fiskars 6.5in ruler work great for me.

Here are my four blocks this week.  I’m using Dear Stella basics with an aqua accent for my North Star quilt.

Week Two Prizes

Winners are chosen and announced on Instagram.

Thank you to our sponsors this week:
The Wild Sweet Pea
Figo Fabrics

The Wild Sweet Pea has donated these gorgeous hand dyed fat quarter bundles!  I’ll choose two winners for these bundles.   Be sure to check out Paige’s shop along with her beautiful patterns. And thank you Figo Fabrics for another fun fat quarter fabric bundle to give away!   This bundle is called Special Delivery.