Making the backing for The Girl's quilt

I pulled some fabric for the back of The Girl's quilt; I was pretty sure she would like it and she does! It looks like birchbark fabric is what she wants. This isn't a huge quilt so I cut a piece of fabric that is 8" longer than the length of the quilt. To bring this length to the desired size for the backing I decided I would make a big star to go on the back. I pulled two of the fabrics I used in the quilt top, the gold and one of the blues.

The blue will be the background for the star and the star will be gold! The fastest way to make the star points was to make half rectangle triangles. I started by cutting four 5" x 7" rectangles from the gold and four from the blue. I drew a line from corner to corner on the wrong side of the blue fabric. I pinned them to the gold fabric as in the picture below.Notice how the direction of the gold fabric is different on the left and right. This is to ensure that the finished triangles are mirror images. I stitched 1/4" away from both sides of the line and then cut on the line.

I pressed the units open and trimmed them down to 4 1/2" by 6 1/2". The half rectangle triangles were then stitched into pairs.

I cut 4 6 1/2" squares for the corners and one 8 1/2" square for the center. It was all stitched together to make a 20" star.

I framed the star with a narrow dark brown border.

The final step was to cut a piece of birchbark fabric to go above and below the star and then stitch the long strips of birchbark fabric to either side. The finished product!

In case you didn't see the quilt top, here it is once again! You can read about it here and find a link to the free Heather Jones pattern.

Only one more week until the next block pattern is published in my Value Proposition QAL! I can't wait to share it with you!

Until I post again, happy sewing!
Karen H