Star of Bethlehem - Turn Your Quilt Block into a Pillow!

Recently, I filmed myself making the beautiful Star of Bethlehem quilt block for my Red Sky at Night quilt series, but when I went to edit it for publication, I discovered, to my dismay, that many parts of the video were unusable! 

I blew my regular Friday posting deadline and just let it sit for 2 days (something I highly recommend doing if ever you happen to ruin something!). Slowly, my brain started to let go of the disappointment and come up with solutions. 

I rummaged through my stash looking for inspiration, and found these beautiful woven fabrics by Fableism. I rarely use them because the colours don't quite match my scrappy palette, but I loved the idea of making something small with just them. I decided to make the quilt block again, and turn it into a pillow. And oh, boy, I'm so glad I did! Isn't it lovely?

The Star of Bethlehem quilt block is the centre block of my Red Sky at Night Quilt, and I've also made a quilt from just this quilt block called Good Things are Coming. Each of the patterns have printable templates, if you just want to make a single quilt block!

After you've finished the English Paper Piecing, remove all the papers and press the back and then the front. When pressing seams of an English Paper Pieced (EPP) quilt block (or quilt), you need to press all the seams inside the block back in place, and all the seams around the edges open and out flat to create the seam allowance for sewing the blocks together, or adding binding. 

Next, make a quilt sandwich from a piece of scrap fabric you'll never use (this won't be seen, so it's a great chance to use up something leftover or ugly!), a scrap piece of batting/wadding, and the quilt block, and pin it in place. I did a light hand-quilting design around the star and diamonds.

After quilting, trim the layers 1/4" from the points of the houses and diamonds. It should be 19 1/2" square after trimming. (See how I trim my EPP blocks in this post.)

Next, make the envelope back for the pillow. For this part, I never really measure the pieces, but I aim for each side of the envelope to be 2/3 of the size of the front. That way, the overlap will be about a third of the pillow. In this case, that means cutting 2 rectangles, each 19 1/2" x about 13". 

Hem one long side of each rectangle. (In the past, if the fabric has a lovely selvedge, I've skipped this step, and just used the selvedge as the edge of the envelope!)

Lay the pillow front right side down, then lay the two rectangles, right sides up, on the back of the pillow. One will overlap the other.

I'm sorry I didn't catch good photos of this step! You need to pin the back in place around the outside edge of the cushion, with the pin points facing in, so that they're easy to see and remove when you turn it over to add binding to the front. 

And voila! Out of what felt like a disaster on Friday became a beautiful pillow that I love having in my living room by Tuesday! I just love the way the border houses and diamonds look curved around the edges, don't you?

And, don't you think a whole Good Things are Coming quilt of these colours would be divine!? I am adding that one to my list! 

Grab your choice of pattern below to make your own Star of Bethlehem quilt block or Good Things are Coming Quilt!