turn one block into the top for an entire quilt?
 

Anyone know of a tutorial or does anyone have any personal experience on what might be the best way to take one small blocks design and turn it into an entire quilt top? I just want a huge star quilt top, not lots of little stars. :) Here is the star I'm drooling over:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/craftzilla/6785842274/

I thought I could possibly just blow up the paper piecing pattern on a copy machine, but after researching lots of people said that won't work as the copy machines apparently sometimes get it off, and the whole pattern won't work.

Since this looks like 1 piece repeated 8 times, you should be OK with blowing this up on a copy machine. Just make sure you don't enlarge the seam allowances too. But if this is paper pieced, each piece should work fine, then cut them with 1/4" seam allowance before assembling all 8 pieces.

It's a lovely star, and I think will look great as a top.

The problem with using a copy machine would be if you want your quilt to be larger than the paper that the copy machine will hold. Printing it in multiple sheets, taping them together, then using it to paper piece would not work well, IMHO. Instead, you could draw the 1/8 wedge out on paper and use that for paper piecing. Each angle in the center is 45 degrees (found on most rulers) and the inner pieces are all diamonds. You could make it without paper piecing by just cutting your center diamonds, framing with white, and them framing again with other colors. It would be a very pretty pattern for a whole quilt top.

I agree with Dunster... that would work. See how large a 45 degree diamond you can get on freezer paper... then measure point to point, that would be the size diamond you are starting with. Then the two more narrow white logs, then the two *brightly-colored* wider logs... see how many inches longer that makes the point of the *diamond*...
If its a queen sized mattress, thats 60 inches wide.. so you only need to work towards a diamond that is 25 or so inches point to point, including the logs.... and some background at the points, if you need it... seems like you could get up near that size with freezer paper that is 18 inches wide for the initial diamond...

I drew a 45 degree diamond in a drawing program, and more or less, if you used a strip of fabric 11 inches wide, and cut a diamond of that shape from it, it would be about 28.5 inches from tip to tip... amazing... that would fit the top of a queen size mattress just barely. The diamond in the picture below is that 11 inch strip... and I drew a wide darker color pair of strips inside the tip, then a slightly more narrow pair of strips for the white. Viola! The inside lines were drawn *freehand* so dont use this for a template LOL you need to make your own and get a handle on the pieces and sizing... Good luck.
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She gives you a link to her printable paper piecing pattern in her blog....

I don't know if you have EQ, but this would be easily accomplished in EQ. Does this block have a name by any chance?

The Lone Starburst

Simple. The easiest & fastest would be to enlarge just a quarter section. You don't have to be very precise about the single block size as you can finish out the quilt with assorted borders. In this case, I think I'd do a wide outside border of some print, a medium inside border of another co-ordinating print, a thin white border and on the inside a thin print border. (mimicing the star & shadow)

That is such a happy, cheerful star, I can see why you want to make it into a quilt using just the pattern for the center. And thanks for the link to the pattern.