The best free paper pieced star pattern you can use!

I know that it might be a bit of a stretch to claim a star pattern is the BEST, but as you may know, I have been making paper pieced stars for a year now as part of the QCA Stars Bee, and I have used most of the different free 12″ stars that are out there on the net.

This star, is hands down, the best design I have sewn up. Most of the stars I’ve tried fall down in the final joining. The centres never line up, or worse still, have a huge lump of seam allowance that makes the block look deformed!

This star comes from Craftsy Instructor, Elizabeth Dackson, better known by her blog identity “Don’t Call me Betsy.” She released the star through Sew Mama Sew to celebrate the launch of her Craftsy class “Start Foundation Paper Piecing.”

The star pattern that I am raving about is the same one I used for my Teal star from my queenly reign last year.

Here is my original grey star. I created this during a Skype lesson teaching my sweet friend, Libby, from the UK how to paper piece. Of course now, you could simply read my two-part tutorial on paper piecing…. but I can always be bribed into another Skype lesson if you would really like to hear my annoying laugh and meet my silly puppies. Random family walking across in the background always a bonus!

Sue’s January star was a little bit on the crazy side, but I hope that it will work well with the blocks she has already received.

Because of the clever way the block is constructed I was able to perfectly fussy cut and position these amazing birds in the corners, building on Sue’s theme of aqua, coral, navy and grey, with white tone-on-tone fabric. I used many precious scraps including some Cotton & Steel and Arizona where I found the gorgeous coral tones.

You can see the construction more clearly from the rear seams – the block is made into 4 quadrants but tilted off a straight vertical/horizontal split that most blocks use.

But the true test of this block is the centre – you can see here the perfect points and in the centre as well as the seams lining up beautifully across the block.

Ok, so enough teasing…. where can you find this amazing pattern?  The pattern, Icicle Star by Don’t Call me Betsy can be downloaded HERE from Sew Mama Sew. It comes in 6″ and 12″ versions in the same file, which is a fabulous added feature. I’m having trouble locating it after all these years, sorry blog readers!

What are your favourite subjects for paper piecing? Do you like making repeating blocks, like stars, or the more creative subjects that are available now including animals, flowers and lots of pop culture references – Star Wars, Dr Who and more. Or if you’re not paper piecing yet, please share in the comments what may be holding you back?

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