Diamond Star Halo How-To

I am going to take a crack at describing how my Hubcap Diamond Star Halo quilt went together, for those who may be interested in making one.  This is not a detailed step-by-step tutorial, but I think you'll have all the information you need from here to create your own.

For starters, let's shorten the name of this to Diamond Star Halo, because that's what it basically looks like, at least to me—faceted like a diamond, the star in the center with the halo around it.  Your interpretation of hubcaps is optional.

The quilt is made with a 12.5-inch kaleidoscope block.  There are only nine blocks in the quilt, which measures 36 inches finished.  So it's wall hanging size or baby quilt size.

Below I have marked the lines which show the individual blocks.  See, only nine of them! 

Each kaleidoscope block is made from eight wedge-shaped kaleidoscope triangle pieces and four 45-degree right triangles in the corners.  You can see the individual pieces better below, where I've marked all the seam lines to show the shapes.

So there are just two simple shapes that comprise each kaleidoscope block.  By using the white background fabric in the corners and parts of the four blocks at the compass points north, south, east, and west (the green and gold blocks above), you create the halo effect around a center star.

As you can see, value and placement of the various fabrics within the blocks is key to this quilt.  I've used mostly medium (or medium/dark) and light fabrics for contrast.  You're probably going to want to play a bit with the layout of your particular fabrics until it strikes your fancy.

I learned most of what I know about kaleidoscope quilts from the quilt along I participated in a couple years ago at Don't Call Me Betsy blog (which, sadly, no longer exists).  I used her PDF template for my kaleidoscope blocks for this quilt.  

Edited in March 2023:  The downloadable PDF template referred to in the preceding paragraph is, unfortunately, no longer available.  However, you can purchase a kaleidoscope ruler such as this one by Marti Michell (not an affiliate link), and use the appropriate markings on the ruler to cut your kaleidoscope triangle pieces for a 12-inch finished block.   

Original post continues:

You can then trace the shapes onto card stock to make your templates for cutting your fabric.  But what I did instead was tape the paper kaleidoscope triangle to the underside of one corner of my Companion Angle ruler that I already had, because the angle matched exactly.  You're going to be cutting your pieces from 6.5-inch strips of fabric, so the lower and upper edges of the kaleidoscope triangle template should match the width of the fabric strip exactly.  Zip-zip with your rotary cutter along the left and right sides and you're all set!

For the corner triangle pieces, instead of using the 45-degree template, I simply cut 4.5-inch squares from the background fabric and then cut them in half on the diagonal.  Easy-peasy, no template really necessary for those.

For my Diamond Star Halo quilt, I cut the following number of kaleidoscope (wedge-shaped) triangles:
8 white
4 purple
4 pink
4 med blue
4 blue floral
12 green
8 gold floral
8 light-colored dot
8 light floral
4 plaid
4 harlequin (center block)
4 purple floral (center block)

Plus:  36 white 45-degree triangles (cut 18 4.5-inch squares and subcut on diagonal)

That's 12 different fabrics, including the white/background.  A fat quarter of each would be ample, plus 1/2 yard (or less) of white.  Or use scraps.  Scraps are good!

Regarding assembly of the blocks, it may seem confusing but remember this:  The four blocks that are north-south-east-west are identical.  They're assembled exactly the same way and then the block is just turned the appropriate direction when you lay them out (before sewing the quilt top together).  

N-S-E-W blocks (make 4 identical)

Same idea with the four outer corner blocks.  They are all assembled the same way, the only difference being in the medium/dark fabric that forms the "X" shape in the block (i.e., one purple, one pink, one blue, and one blue print in my example).  The two light fabrics in these blocks are placed in the same positions in each block. For example, (see below) the light dot is at 6 and 9 o'clock, and the light floral is at 12 and 3.  Again, when you lay your blocks out for your final assembly, you'll just turn them.

Corner blocks (make 4 w/different fabrics in "X", same lights)

You only make one center block:

Center block (darker fabric forming "X")

Clear enough so far? 

As far as assembling the individual blocks, I like to lay the pieces out on the table the way they go together.  Then I start by sewing the corner triangles onto the four wedges that will make the "X" shape.

Please don't be confused by my example here.  I am using leftover, already cut pieces from my scraps, and the way I've laid them out here is not how any block in the Diamond Star Halo is pieced.  I'm just describing, in general, how to sew a kaleidoscope block together.

So, as I was saying, sew the corner pieces onto the four wedges.  They look like ice cream cones at this point, don't they?

I press all seams open through the whole block assembly process, and press after each seam is sewn.

Then starting from the upper left (ice cream cone piece) and moving clockwise, sew four wedges together.  Then repeat the same for the remaining four pieces, such that you end up with two halves or hemispheres.

Then sew the two halves together in one long seam, press, and there's your block!  Trim as necessary.  It should be 12.5 inches square.

Lay out your blocks as they're assembled and check to make sure everything is pointing the right direction, i.e., you see your star center and halo and such.  Then sew the blocks together in rows, etc., as usual to finish your quilt top.

Make sense?  If not or you have questions, let me know in the comments and I will clarify as best I can. 

If you make a Diamond Star Halo quilt, I'd love to see it!  I think it'd be cool to make it in Christmas prints or a nautical theme (or any number of other ways).  However you make it, have fun!

Hubcap Diamond Star Halo

Well, you're built like a car

You've got a hubcap diamond star halo

You're built like a car, oh yeah...

That song lyric was the inspiration for this quilt.  More specifically, it happened like this, as I related in my original post when I started this quilt way back in February 2012:

See, it all started as my husband and I were driving one day when the '70s classic T. Rex song, "Bang a Gong" came on the radio.  There are some strange lyrics in that song.  I wondered what the "teeth of the Hydra" or a "cloak full of eagles" had to do with anything, but more importantly, what a "hubcap diamond star halo" would look like.  My imagination went into overdrive.

"I want to make a quilt and call it Hubcap Diamond Star Halo," I told Norm while the song played on.  Talk about working backwards.  The name came first.

I knew it would have to have elements of '70s psycha-funka-delic style, and I probably just made that word up.  I was envisioning those bold, bright colors like Peter Max and H.R. Pufnstuf cartoons, and glam rocker and T. Rex front man himself, the late Marc Bolan.

You can read the rest of that post and see the video I made of the creation process.  Frustrating as it seemed at the time, in retrospect it was really pretty fun.

I finished the flimsy days later.  Days, people.  And then a couple years went by.  Years!  To quote the final line of "Bang a Gong," which Marc Bolan apparently borrowed from Chuck Berry:

Well, meanwhile, I'm still thinking....

Yep, thinking for like two years about how to quilt it (while doing a good job not thinking about it as well, as in not focusing on getting it done). Taking a fresh look at it earlier this year, I decided I had learned a couple things in the interim and was ready to tackle this particular UFO.  And so I did.

Well, you're windy and wild

You've got the blues in your shoes and your stockings 

You're windy and wild, oh yeah...

I ended up quilting the gentle arcs in the triangular prints with a walking foot.  Then I free motion quilted swirls and pebbles (mostly swirls) in the white space.

The fabric is from a fat quarter stack/quilt kit I found a few years ago at the thrift store, new in the box, marketed by Jo-Ann Fabric at some point in the not-too-distant past.  The binding is Alexander Henry's Heath, from a scrap I'd been hoarding saving.  It measures 36 x 36 inches.

The back is funky purple, pink, and orange, oh my!

And with that, I say Bang a Gong!

(Edited to add:  I did a post about how to make this quilt, which you can find HERE.)

Slow Mojo

How is it I can ignore two whole boxes of paperwork "to be filed" for years on end, and then all of a sudden decide that it needs to be addressed this very week?  

Hm, could it be that I am procrastinating on something else?  I think we can all guess the answer to that one.

This month marks my four-year blog anniversary, and that's about exactly how long it's been since I did any serious filing or otherwise dealing with paperwork.  The good thing about waiting so long is that 80 percent of it can be tossed.  Well, not tossed, exactly, as a lot of it is personal and financial type things.  I'll probably have a little party around the burn barrel soon.  Hear that, Dad?  I'm coming over to your place to set my stuff on fire. 

A friend and former coworker, who was a young lawyer at the time and now is a financial advisor, told me he threw away all his bills right after he paid them.  Like, immediately.  On hearing this, I remember being shocked for a few seconds.  This was before the days of going paperless and online access.  I was taught one needed to save such things, although I was never really sure for how long.  His response was, "What for?" and he went on to justify the rationale for his personal statute of limitations.  I've become better at adopting this attitude in the years since, but apparently I'm not quite there yet. 

I did find my mortgage paperwork in one of the boxes, along with an original car title and my sister-in-law's Health Care Power of Attorney.  You know, things one might need to put one's hands on quickly without first having to sift through a few hundred pages of financial statements, receipts, and a couple colonoscopy reports (with color photos!).

Not much has been happening in the sewing room this week except for one sample block.  I bought a Quick Curve Ruler so I could make the Mod Olives block following the tutorial at Sew Kind of Wonderful.

But I am apparently a big fumble-futz when it comes to curved rulers.  I made a mess of the first few cuts and finally gave up on the rotary cutter altogether and used a marking pen with the ruler and then scissor-cut the pieces.  I'm not sure what my problem was there.  I'll take another whack at it (probably literally) another time.

Finally, I am taking baby steps to try to sneak around my procrastination problem. So even though it's been slow, the flow (my word for 2014) hasn't stopped completely.

A few days ago, I doodled a quilting idea for the Hubcap Diamond Star Halo quilt, and today I finally got it basted.

What are you working on this weekend?

I love everything about this song, a song about flow of another kind, as in a river (and life, in general).  Darrell Scott can sure tell a story in his songwriting, and he is a master on the guitar.

Sunday Sundry 2-16-14

Valentine's Day began with a surprise while I was lying in bed (not what you're thinking) doing my shoulder exercises.  See there?  I know how to party.

Norm had been up making coffee.  He came back upstairs with a brown paper bag garnished with a red bow.

"Happy Valentine's Day!  It's not breakfast in bed."  We had just been talking about the whole breakfast in bed thing a few days before.  I said I kind of liked the idea.  He said he didn't really care for it.  Obviously, after 30 years, this is not a deal breaker.  Just one of those things you shrug off and go, "Hunh."

I sat up and took the package.  It felt like...a bowl??  But it was even better.

A cake stand!  Not just any one, but the Georges Briard cake stand I had seen at the antique mall a couple weeks ago.  He had gone back and bought it for me a few days later.

Isn't that sweet?  I love it!

I made him some brownies yesterday in return, which, no, I did not put on the cake stand (are you kidding? I just washed it).  I totally could have though.  I will definitely will use it in the future, just you wait and see.

We went shopping yesterday and I blew my Jo-Ann gift card from Christmas on a smaller rotary cutter, some blades, and these blazing lovelies, which I hope will help melt the polar icecap that seems to have dipped into our neck of the woods this winter.

What will I make with them?  Who knows!  Maybe I'll work some of them into the Tea Towel Challenge project.  I need to get going on that again.

I also need to baste the next UFO to be quilted, which is this one, Hubcap Diamond Star Halo.  Egads, I finished the flimsy two years ago.  Surely it has aged enough by now.

Frankly, I've been a little intimidated by it.  There, I said it.  But "feel the fear and quilt it anyway," right?  Right-o.

Finish-A-Long Q1 List

I don't know if there's a statute of limitations on "what I plan to do in 2013" posts, but it feels like I'm late to the party.  Not that I haven't been thinking of it, or that it took me 10 days to put this post together; I've just been finishing up some other things first.  Anyway...

There is carryover into the new year in the form of several UFOs, which I aim to finish in 2013.  To keep on track, I'm going to hitch up with the 2013 Finish-A-Long with Leanne at She Can Quilt.

Here are my projects to finish in the first quarter of 2013, one per month:

"Number Three"

Snail's Trail

"Hubcap Diamond Star Halo" 

(music video on the layout process here)

All are quilt tops in need of quilting.  I procrastinated on them in 2012, thinking that after working through the 2012 Free Motion Quilt Challenge, I'd have all sorts of new skills and confidence.  I did a couple months' worth of tutes right on track in the beginning of the year, and then life got in the way and I got behind and really just dropped the ball.

Fortunately, most of the tutorials are still available, so that's something else I plan to do in 2013, revisit the FMQ Challenge.

But that won't hold up the show to finish my UFOs, even if I have to meander stipple every last one of them, or (better idea?) send them off on a fabulous vacation to the longarmer!

I think it's a very manageable, short list for this quarter, and still gives me plenty of leeway to see what other trouble I can get into, too!

Was That a Hiatus?

I'd been feeling like I hadn't done a thing in the sewing room for quite some time—which is true, but let's focus on the positive. 

After working extra hours Saturday and Sunday, I took this afternoon off to sew (dagnabbit!), instead of just think about sewing.  Although, I will say that in thinking about sewing this past week, I did accomplish some things:  I ordered fabric for the Ironwork quilt-along quilt, and I pondered and doodled how I might quilt the Hubcap Diamond Star Halo project.

My fabric order arrived today.  I think it's an interesting combination.  The rosewood solid turned out to be a little lighter than I expected, but I still think it'll work for Ironwork.  I did order some black as well, though, in case I change my mind.  The print is for the quilt backing.

Oh, and I want to show you something else.  I've been looking around for some more Alexander Henry Heath in black, to no avail.  So I ordered some black and white Crosshatch Sketch from Timeless Treasures, and you know what?  It's pretty darn close!  Here it is, on the left, side by side with some Heath in Metal (grey) on the right.

I say, close enough for rock and roll!

Today, I wanted to practice some free-motion quilting and hopefully (simultaneously) get the mini, A Patch of Sun, quilted.  Check, and check!

First I doodled, but not wanting to waste precious time, I didn't dally on the doodling.  Instead, I went straight to the machine and did some loopy daisies.  

This is just a sneak peak.  I will do a proper post when I've got the mini bound, which I think will be with some of that Heath in Metal.  It's going through the rinse cycle of the washing machine as we speak.

Friday Flimsy

I managed to get the Hubcap Diamond Star Halo flimsy sewn together this week.  If you're scratching your head about the name of this little kaleidoscope quilt, it's based on a song lyric from "Bang A Gong."  I explained how it came about in the previous post (and also made a video of the trial-and-error design process).

We got a little snow yesterday, and it was still flurrying this morning when I set this 36-inch square jobber just outside the patio door and snapped some pictures.  

Snow (as in the cold and fluffy stuff this is laying on) isn't really bright white in color, is it?  Hunh.  I guess Kaufman did its research when they invented the fabric color Kona Snow.  I used Kona White in the quilt here.

It was really fun putting these colorful blocks together.  Individually, they reminded me of the tops of bright umbrellas.

And before you know it, I was mulling over how I could use the leftovers for my next quilt, based on a Led Zeppelin song lyric, entitled With a Purple Umbrella and a 50-cent Hat (from "Living Loving Maid").  Oh, go ahead and listen.  You want to know what in blazes I'm talking about, right?

Just kidding...maybe. (Could that be a "raspberry beret," that pink one? The kind you buy {for 50 cents} in a second-hand store?  Too much of a stretch?)

Not kidding about the leftovers, though.  I could make a whole 'nother quilt with the pieces I have left.  Maybe with a black background to make those brights really pop?  *Sigh*  So many quilts, so little time.

I hope you do have time to visit the Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? linky at Confessions of a Fabric Addict—P.S., she's having a giveaway—and thanks for stopping by here!

The Frustration of Creation

I spent a good part of the afternoon yesterday and the morning today crawling around on the floor, trying to get the look I wanted for kaleidoscope quilt v.2.0.  Then I'd ask my husband's opinion, and he had some.  But by the end of it, his opinion was that he just didn't care anymore. 

It was exasperating and it gave me a headache.  But I think I finally have a plan, and if I change my mind again, I deserve to be hit over said aching head.

This is a quilt I started last summer, shortly after my first kaleidoscope quilt was done.  That one turned out beautifully, but it wasn't quite what I had envisioned, so I started a second one.  This one might not be exactly it either, but it seems closer.

See, it all started as my husband and I were driving one day when the '70s classic T. Rex song, "Bang a Gong" came on the radio.  There are some strange lyrics in that song.  I wondered what the "teeth of the Hydra" or a "cloak full of eagles" had to do with anything, but more importantly, what a "hubcap diamond star halo" would look like.  My imagination went into overdrive.

"I want to make a quilt and call it Hubcap Diamond Star Halo," I told Norm while the song played on.  Talk about working backwards.  The name came first.

I knew it would have to have elements of '70s psycha-funka-delic style, and I probably just made that word up.  I was envisioning those bold, bright colors like Peter Max and H.R. Pufnstuf cartoons, and glam rocker and T. Rex front man himself, the late Marc Bolan.

Soon enough, I found the fabric for it (different than what I'd used in the first kaleidoscope quilt).  I cut out last August but just got back around to playing with the layout the other day.  This is going to be a wall hanging size quilt, I've determined.  A medallion type thing will get the point across just as well and for a lot less investment in Extra-Strength Tylenol.

Speaking of frustrating...my first ever video documenting the process.  Oy, what a time suck that was, but I think it turned out pretty well, all things considered.  I am grateful to my brother Russ for helping me out at the end when Picasa decided to muck up the audio.  You're my hero, bro.

View it in full screen so you can read the text panes between (in the future, I'll use a more legible font).  Here we go.  Bang a Gong!