It’s been a minute since I played with a sawtooth star. Even though it’s a traditional quilt block, I still think it can be adapted quite easily for use in a modern quilt.

I’ve chucked one right in the centre, then used partial stars to radiate out, echoing the shapes in every direction. This isn’t a new idea – I know I’ve seen that central arrangement of a sawtooth star surrounded by four other partial stars used as a block in its own right. I checked 5500 Quilt Block Designs by Maggie Malone and the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns by Barbara Brackman and couldn’t see anything exactly the same (but I get so distracted by the thousands of blocks in those books that it’s hard to stay on track….). And there were other blocks in those books that are along the same lines: a centre unit surrounded by parts of the same unit. It’s a fun concept with lots of potential.

I’m taking my colour inspiration from Tara Glastonbury again this month, as she released the next issue of Curated Colour this week. Last month she covered Kona’s 2025 Colour of the Year (‘Nocturne’), and this month it’s Pantone’s 2025 Colour of the Year, ‘Mocha Mousse‘. If you’ve subscribed to the annual bundle of issues, you’ll also get a bonus Mocha Mousse palette (12 more colours). I tend to look at the Kona colours, but if you’re into Painter’s Palette or Devonstone solids, Tara’s got you covered.

I won’t spoil the issue by showing too many of her colours here, but I am weirdly drawn to the mousse-y Kona equivalents paired with darker chocolate shades. But then those darker shades also look good with bright colours too. I tend to design with dark blue or black as my dark background, but I’m warming to the idea of a rich chocolatey brown.

     

One thing that struck me about this design is the interesting secondary shapes that emerge between the full and partial sawtooth stars. I see lots of chunky arrows zig-zagging back and forth. If I highlight them with a pop of colour, you can see what I mean. Aren’t they fun? I’ll come back to them later.

     

But first I’ll play with adding another 4 sawtooth stars at the cardinal points of this design – I think they help to round out of the overall design a bit. What felt squarish before now feels circular(ish).

     

But let’s get back to those secondary shapes. If I pull them out on their own, you can get a better idea of how they interact with their neighbours. I like how the arrows pointing back and forth create zig-zagging lines across the design.

I kinda liked the idea of popping in some more stars in that empty space…

…or just creating more stars by adding arrows and squares.

     

I find designs like this more striking in two colours, but there are always options for expanding the palette (and help from Tara to mix colours that work well with the Mocha Mousse-like solid).

But I’ll stick with a two-colour palette for now. I can add more partial stars around the sides to fill things out.

I like the rounded shape that this approach creates. It reminds me a little of the head of a cauliflower.

   

This brings the design almost back to where I started. But not quite. Originally I had the full/partial sawtooth stars laid on a background, which created some interesting secondary shapes (the chunky arrows and squares); now those chunky arrows and squares are laid on the background, creating sawtooth stars as secondary shapes.

Here’s a reminder of the first two designs from above, with the other approach in the same colourway shown underneath for comparison.

     

     

In each column, the two designs are identical in the middle; it’s only around the edges of the designs that the differences are apparent. Which design you opted for would depend on whether you wanted the sawtooth stars to be the main shapes or the secondary shapes. The designs in the top row have more sharp edges, which are all contained by other shapes in the bottom row.

These designs would be easy to make into actual quilts. To avoid having to plan too much, I’d probably make a bunch of half-square triangles and squares and just assemble on the fly. But you could save a bit of time (and seams) by planning out a bit more, making flying geese units to replace some pairs of half-square triangles, and even making partial blocks before putting everything together. There’d be a lot of repetitive cutting and sewing, but all fairly straightforward.

I’m going to keep playing with this basic concept – a sawtooth star created by other shapes – so keep an eye out in the next few weeks for some related designs. And in the meantime, grab a copy of Tara Glastonbury’s Curated Colour. Even if you don’t plan on sewing with a Mocha Mousse-like shade (for the 2025 Pantone Quilt Challenge, for example!), it’s still a valuable resource for exploring new colour combinations. Who would’ve thought such a meh brown could be so interesting??