Stellar Sampler

We’ve chosen another old favourite to highlight this month – the Sawtooth Star.

There are a gazillion variations of this block – and no rules to say you can’t make up your own. You can download a block to colour or play with plus cutting instructions for many of the blocks featured – and there should be enough information in there to work out how to make lots of other blocks.

To start with you can add triangle corners and/or a diamond-in-a-square centre to make a Variable Star, a Variable Star Variation and Mosaic #19

Or you split that centre square into triangles to make Free Trade, Chisholm Trail, Sarah’s Choice, Barbara Frietschie, Anna’s Choice, Margaret’s Choice and and another Variable Star Variation

Some of the blocks look identical – apart from the way they are coloured and this has been enough to give them different names over the years.

Those centre triangles can be divided again to give us two very similar looking blocks – Martha Washington’s Star and Star and Pinwheels

Or how about dividing the centre (and maybe the corners) into smaller squares? This will give blocks such as Sawtooth 16-patch and Frayed Sawtooth

Sometimes a Sawtooth Star block has been used as the centre square – this gives us Rising Star and Eight Hands Around

Taking these a little further by dividing the corners and even the large triangles around the edges to make a Rising Star Variation, Free Trade, and Odd Fellows Chain and its Variation

What we haven’t yet done is split the small Flying Geese triangles – doing this gives us Aunt Addies Album and from there you can get Square and Stars and its Variation

Start playing with this exceptionally versatile block and see what you come up with – download the PDF to help you on your way.