Piecing Star Churn Quilt Blocks together using the PFAFF performance icon

This week’s project is coming together today! In yesterday’s post, I made the units for the Vintage Holiday bed runner while going over the function buttons on the PFAFF performance icon. I really appreciated the accuracy I get when piecing the flying geese blocks using the IDT System.

We’ll continue to use the function buttons, especially the Needle Stop Up/Down as we piece the churn star blocks together. I’ll also use the ¼” Quilting Foot for IDT System as it will also help me in getting precise seam allowances which means my block units will all fit together nicely.

Here’s a layout photo so that you know what each block will look like as we go – you can chain piece to make this step go quicker too. For me,

that means I’ll sew the same unit for each block one after the other so I’m making 3 blocks at once!

Make the Churn Star blocks

To make 1 Churning Star block, sew the units into 3 rows.

1. To make the top row, sew one HST with fabric C corner bottom right sewn to left side of 1 flying geese unit with a rectangle at the top. Then sew a second HST with the fabric C corner bottom left to the right edge of the flying geese unit. Press the seams to the HST units.
2. To make the middle row, sew 1 flying geese unit with the ‘goose’ pointing left with 1 center fabric B 6½” square sewn to the left side of it. Then sew a second flying geese unit with the ‘goose’ pointing right to the right side of the center square. Press the seams to the center square.
3. To make the bottom row, sew one hst with the fabric C corner top right sewn to the left side of 1 flying geese unit with the rectangle at the bottom. Then sew a second hst with the fabric C corner top left to the right edge of the flying geese unit. Press the seams to the HST units.
4. Sew the rows together, nesting the seams and pressing each seam to the row below. The block should measure 18½” square.
5. Repeat to make 2 more Churning Star blocks.

Assemble the runner

1. Sew the 3 Churning Star blocks together to make the runner. You can choose to make the center square images go in the same direction or not – you could turn the end ones to face away from the center. Press the seams in whichever direction works best.
2. Sew one 2½” x 54½” border strip to the top and one to the bottom long edges of the runner. Press the seams to the strips.
3. Sew one 2½” x 22½” border strip to each short end of the runner and press the seams to the strips. The runner should measure 22½” x 54½”.

Now we need to quilt it!

I know it might be hard to see in the photos, but trust me when I say that the PFAFF performance icon just makes it easy to sew blocks together. I don’t worry about any seams not lining up or blocks not turning out the right size. The IDT System really is a great feature of PFAFF machines.

Join me tomorrow when I quilt the Vintage Holiday bed runner on the PFAFF performance icon!

This is part 3 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 2: Cutting and piecing the Vintage Holiday quilted runner

Go to part 4: Why 3 different presser feet are better than 1 for quilting this bed runner