Quilting and the Sawtooth Star Block

The Sawtooth Star is an 8 point star.   It is an easy and therefore frugal block.  The points of the star are made with Flying Geese Blocks.

It is very easy to see the pieces for this block with the blocks separated by the black lines.

You can see there are  4 flying geese blocks, one on each side.  There is a big square in the center, and then 4 small squares in the corners.

To make this block with easy measurements, make the flying geese 2x4 inches finished.  That would make the center square 4 1/2 inches raw, and the corner squares 2 1/2 inches raw.

Press your seams on the first row toward the outside block to lay flat.  Press the seam in the middle toward the center.  You can turn the vertical seam either way.

Remember that on this block you must have the 1/4 inch of fabric from the point of the star to the edge of the block, so that the star points won't get chopped off when this block is sewn to another piece of fabric.  Make sure you are accurate when you piece your flying geese.

Also remember that when you sew this block to another piece of fabric, do it with the geese block up, so that you can make sure you are stitching accurately and do not cut off the points.

Here is another piece of a quilt made with nothing but Sawtooth stars.  It is a small, very scrappy quilt, made of lots of a fabrics. Notice how when the Sawtooth stars are put next to each other without any sashing, you have a series 4 patch squares where the corners meet. 

Another secondary pattern is formed where the star points meet of a square in a square.

Here is an easy way to give a Sawtooth star quilting block a little more punch.  Add a 5 pointed star in the middle of it.

There are many ways to attach the star.  I used a fusible.  What is nice about stars is that you can just do a straight stitch around the edges of the star to attach it to the fabric.

As you can see from the picture, the 5 sides of the inner star fit nicely with the 8 stars of the sawtooth star...although the inner star is leaning a little to the right.