Re-Thinking a Traditional Quilt Pattern: Deb Tucker’s Hunter’s Star Made Easy

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There is nothing like a Hunter’s Star quilt. Stunning, but challenging, this traditional quilt design lingers for years on many quilters’ bucket lists. The design was certainly on Deb Tucker’s bucket list…for 25 years. And then she invented an easier way to make it.

The actual quilt block doesn’t look anything like a star. The Hunter’s Star appears only as the blocks come together in the overall quilt.

This is what a single, isolated Hunter’s Star quilt block looks like.

Over the decades, there have been many approaches to making this quilt block and pattern.

“About a hundred plus years ago,” says Deb Tucker, “The Hunter Star block was actually made by piecing a dark triangle with a light triangle, and then appliquéing the diamonds into the corner. That was very time intensive and not a what a lot of people like to do.”

When you bring four Hunter’s Star blocks together, the beautiful stars that create a Hunter’s Star quilt begin to emerge.

Sometime in the 1930s, a new approach was popularized. “The Hunter star block became a totally pieced block that had a separate trapezoid shape in the middle,” says Deb. “You cut a template for the triangles, you cut a template for the diamonds, and you’ll have a template for the trapezoid as well, and then try to fit everything together.”

The angles and bias can make this approach still challenging, however.

A traditional-looking, scrappy Hunter’s Star quilt.

Later methods, such as using half square triangles and foundation piecing, helped, but certainly didn’t make the Hunter’s Star quilt pattern anything that could be called “easy.”

When Deb was asked to teach a course on the Hunter’s Star quilt pattern, she know that none of these methods would be acceptable for the quilters she would be teaching.

She began to play with the design, and developed a tool and an approach to making the Hunter’s Star that has become the gold standard method. And opened up opportunities for all kinds of variations on the Hunter’s Star design.

A contemporary, 2-color Hunter’s Star quilt.

Deb’s workshop, Hunter’s Star Made Easy, presents lessons and designs that she has honed and perfected over the years. Through this workshop, you’ll have lifetime access to 7, in-depth video lessons, and until the workshop ends on July 1, 2022, you’ll be able to interact with your fellow students AND ask questions of Deb herself!

Take this quilt off your bucket list, and bring it into reality!

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