How to Make Danish Stars

This is an easy, beginner-level Scandinavian craft that can also be done with paper, and there are several tutorials for both fabric and paper online. I designed my cut-and-sew fabric to follow the tutorial made by Erika Mulvenna on her blog We All Sew. The instructions below are very limited because Erika already made a very professional blog page that does such a good job showing how to make this very fun, very easy craft. 

 

Materials

  • Fabric: all options can be found in my Christmas/Advent/Nativity collection at Spoonflower. For this project you need at least one fat quarter in woven cotton fabric (Organic Cotton Sateen is best, but Petal Signature Cotton works perfectly fine) of Danish Stars in Circle Cross, Diamond Cross, Greek Cross, Open Cross, or Mixed Patterns. Two complete Danish Stars come on each fat quarter of fabric, so on one full yard you would get 4 fat quarters and thus 8 Danish Stars; to get a mixed set of 4 fat quarters, here is the link for one yard of 8 mixed Danish Stars (Greek, Open, Diamond, & Mixed Patterns in blue, yellow, green, & red as seen below).
  • Thread for sewing (any color, it won’t be seen)
  • Thread or embroidery floss for hanging loops

Equipment

  • Fabric cutting tools
  • Ironing equipment
  • Sewing tools
  • Very helpful: a bodkin (but a large safety pin will work too)

Sewing Instructions

First: Prepare the fabric (optional)

1. Machine wash the fabric on gentle with cool water.

2. Machine dry on low or permanent press; remove promptly to prevent wrinkles.

3. Iron on the setting for the fabric, on the wrong side of the fabric.

***This is optional if you are making Christmas tree ornaments since the final product will not be laundered, and there should not be a reason to need to remove any residual products from the printing process.***

Second: Cut out the fabric

1. Cut out the 8 strips of patterned fabric.

 

Third: Make the stars

1. Follow Erika Mulvenna's blog post to easily make Danish Stars that look like the ones above! Photos below show an almost 7 year old assembling them by herself. It's a great project to teach some basics of sewing, to include straight seams, turning, ironing, folding, cutting fabric, and hand sewing.

 


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