How To Make A Star In A Star Block

Published February 2026

Join Jen as she shows you how to make the stunning Star In A Star block in our Patchwork of Praise quilt. Bring peace and renewal into your home with this lovely design, colored in the beautiful Meadow Walk collection by Andover Fabrics. Sweet prints in a comforting palette of aqua, dark green, gold, pink, and magenta are paired with uplifting scripture verses nested inside log cabin and star blocks, creating a quilt that feels both joyful and reverent.

In this video, you'll learn:

• Why you fussy-cut panel squares to a trimmed 4.5″ using the ruler's lines, not the panel's printed grid, which can't be trusted to be perfectly on-point.
• The fast flying-geese method: one large square, four small squares, Frixion-pen diagonal lines, and a snip-sew-cut-press sequence that yields four geese units at once.
• How the Ultimate Flying Geese tool's finished-versus-unfinished sizing and letter-coded trims take the guesswork out of squaring those units.
• Why this block's pressing directions deliberately break the “always press toward dark” rule — and when a clapper earns its keep on a stubborn seam.
• The mirror-image gotcha: two visually identical-looking unit pairs that are actually mirror images of each other, and have to land in different blocks.

Check the links for everything you need.

Introduction

This star-in-a-star block anchors the “Patchwork of Praise” quilt, built around Block Party Studio's “Comfort of Psalms” panel and Andover's Meadow Walk fabric line by Alexandra Bordallo. It's a block with a lot going on — fussy-cut panel squares, fast flying geese, and units that interlock at odd angles — so this walkthrough leans on two specialty rulers to keep every piece exactly where it needs to be.

Fussy-Cutting the Panel Squares

Getting the panel squares centered starts with trusting your ruler over the panel itself.

1. Center your ruler's own printed lines over the motif you want to feature, then trim to a clean 4.5″ square.
2. Don't rely on the panel's printed grid lines to confirm you're on point — printed panels are rarely perfectly square to their own artwork, and a ruler that looks slightly “off” against the panel is usually the ruler being right.

The Fast Flying-Geese Method

Rather than piecing geese one at a time, this method builds four identical units in a single pass.

1. Start with one large square and four small squares.
2. Draw a diagonal line across the back of each small square with a Frixion pen — the marks disappear with heat once you're done, so nothing lingers in the finished block.
3. Sew a scant quarter inch on both sides of each drawn line, then snip apart along the lines themselves.
4. Cut the units apart, then press the seams outward, away from the geese's center, to yield four flying-geese units from that single starting square.

Squaring Up with the Ultimate Flying Geese Tool

Once your geese are pieced, the Ultimate Flying Geese tool takes over for trimming them to size accurately.

1. The tool distinguishes between a unit's finished size and its unfinished size — know which measurement your pattern is calling for before you trim, since lining up the wrong one throws the whole unit off.
2. Letter-coded markings on the ruler correspond to specific trim lines, so once you know your target size, the tool tells you exactly where to cut on each side.
3. A spinning cutting mat makes the tool's two-step trim-and-rotate process far faster than picking the whole unit up and repositioning it by hand between cuts.

Pressing by the Pattern, Not by Habit

This block's interlocking seams mean the usual “press toward dark” instinct doesn't always apply.

1. Follow this pattern's specific pressing arrows for each unit, even when a direction looks counterintuitive — the seams are engineered to nest into each other at final assembly, and pressing on habit alone can work against that.
2. Reach for a clapper on any seam that's stubborn about lying flat — a few seconds of pressure while the seam is still hot locks it down cleanly without extra steam or fuss.

Assembling the Three-Quarter Block Units

Several oversized units come together before final squaring, and it's normal for them to look mismatched along the way.

1. Join your three-quarter block units even when their raw edges don't appear to line up perfectly — these units are intentionally cut oversized, so a visible size mismatch at this stage isn't a mistake.
2. Square the joined unit using both the ruler's size line and the block's corner point together — the size line alone isn't enough here, since it's the corner point that keeps the star's angles crisp once everything comes together.

Watch for mirror-image pairs. Some of these units come out looking identical at a glance, but they're actually mirror images of each other and belong in different blocks. Take a moment to sort them carefully before sewing — labeling pairs as you complete them is an easy way to keep the correct unit paired with the correct block.

Final Row-by-Row Assembly

With every unit pieced, squared, and correctly sorted, the block comes together row by row.

1. Lay out all units in their final positions before sewing a single seam, confirming the mirror-image pairs have landed where they belong.
2. Sew the block together row by row, pressing as you go, then square the completed block to size.

Between the fussy-cut centers, the fast flying geese, and the pattern-directed pressing, this star-in-a-star block asks for more patience than most — but the two specialty rulers do most of the precision work for you, so what's left is mostly a matter of taking it one unit at a time and double-checking before you sew.

Pick up your “Comfort of Psalms” panel and Meadow Walk fabrics, the Ultimate Flying Geese tool, a 4.5″ Square Up ruler, and any other notions you need to get started.

For personal use only, not for commercial production. No part of this pattern may be reproduced, shared, or distributed in any form unless given express written consent by Shabby Fabrics. Not to be used with any online classes or video tutorials other than the official Shabby Fabrics tutorial. All designs, photographs, and images are protected by federal copyright law. All rights reserved.