Faster fussy cutting – a trick

Every year I make ornament stars and this year I have learned a new trick and I am glad to share it with you!

Also, this year I have created a new star ornament pattern, for a 6-point star.

The older pattern (for an 8-point star) is wonderful…

…
but the 6-point star has a few advantages: you finish it quicker, it requires less fabric but most importantly: if you want to make a kaleidoscope star, you need a certain amount of fabric and obviously, for a 6- point star you need less fabric than for a 8-point star.

But what’s a kaleidoscope star? It’s made out of pieces of fabric that have the same print.

The best thing about these stars? You need squares to create them and this allowed me to come up with a trick…

Here is the border fabric I used. It has four border designs that run along the length of the fabric. I had half yard.

I found on the fabric 8 design repeats and in order to use this  fabric in the most economical way, I fussy cut the biggest squares I could.

Then I cut the big squares into four squares.

And now, with the effort needed for cutting one set of squares I have squares for 4 stars!

I finished only three of them (my little nephew had an accident with the fourth!)…The time needed for fussy cutting was cut in 4!

Do you know you can piece squares with the same design into a kaleidoscope square? It is the easiest kaleidoscope!

From my border fabric I was able to cut 4 more squares with the same design.

I could not use them for a star but here is another way to use them: cut them on both diagonals…

…
and you could make blocks like these ones: another type of kaleidoscope square.

I still have these pieces that can be used for cutting smaller squares…

And here are my 6-point kaleidoscope stars; for all these stars I used half yard of fabric…

First I fussy cut the biggest 6 squares I could (8”) then I cut them into 4” squares.

Here are two sets.

Then from the remaining fabric I cut 2” square sets.  Variety of size, variety of design…

Do you have some cool, winter buttons? Add them in the center!

When I see a beautiful print I always think at kaleidoscope things to sew, and at this time of the year, of course it’s stars!
Remember, for most prints you can find 6 design repeats on only half yard!  Depending on the size of the design, you could find even 8 repeats on half yard, for 8-point stars.

If you want to make your own stars, click here for the patterns.

Happy sewing!