Originally Posted by MTS
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If you want to do it the traditional pieced way, the best book out there is by Jan Krentz, Lone Star and Beyond.
..... fabric should be starched to oblivion before cutting to avoid any unnecessary stretching......
MTS always has good tips for us.
But, here's another one:
If, like me, you are not a fan of starch, (a story for another time), you might try (temporarily) fusing freezer paper to the back of your strip sets before cutting the segments of your star. Leave the paper on, use a smaller stitch length, re-press to re-fuse as needed, as you sew the strip segments together for the star points. Leave freezer paper on until you've set in your background pieces and this will help prevent the stretching that creates that volcano, or pregnancy, in the middle of the star.
If you are planning to machine quilt your quilt, you might even try the very sheerest/lightest weight, permanent, one-sided fusible instead, and not worry about removing the paper afterwards.
Jan in VA