Hey Everyone, welcome back to Free Motion Friday.

Tonight the skies are clear so the stars should be out. Too bad some northern lights wouldn’t dance across the sky in all their splendid glory for everyone to see. I would be in heaven if they did. One of my favourite things about living in the arctic was the northern lights and one of the things I miss the most.

This star motif is fun and carefree – crossing over lines and back tracking is allowed. Creating the motif can be done by following these few steps.

Step 1

To begin stitch a line and then back track on it for a few stitches.

First line stitch and double backed on

Step 2

Stitch a line perpendicular to the line just stitched then stop in the middle where the two lines intersect.

Stitch back and forth across line stopping in middle

Step 3

Stitch another line at an angle between those two lines stopping where all the lines intersect.

Third stitch line at an angle to the other two lines

Step 4

Continue with another line at an angle in the open space left between the first two lines stitched. Stop again in the middle.

Fourth stitch line filling the rest of the star

Step 5

Stitch back down the original line a few stitches and then veer off the line to continue meandering to the next star.

Final stitch line back down original line to continue meandering

This motif works great as an all over design or as a stand alone star in the sky with no meandering between.

Stand alone stars

The only draw back to this is that there are a lot of threads to tie off and bury but with the handy self threading needles quick work is made of the job.

A great little motif for those of you who do not like to draw five pointed stars with a pencil let alone draw them with thread.

They would look fantastic in a shiny polyester or rayon thread or maybe metallic thread. How about as bobbin play with the 12 wt Razzle Dazzle metallic thread. They would certainly stand out in the night sky then.

Give it a try and see what you think. The sky is the limit.

Happy Quilting!