Folded Star Trivet Tutorial

Tutorial to Make a Pair of Folded Star Trivets…

This design is not a Liesl Made original–in fact, it’s probably older than I am. I’ve seen them all over the place made and sold by various people at craft fairs and online so I am assuming there is no copyright on them. Many years ago, my mother received a pair made by a local woman and being the inquisitive, puzzle-solving type, I inspected one and started playing around with making my own. This is the method I’ve come up with.

Also, another helpful note:

Don’t put them in in the washer. Hand wash only. You might be able to machine wash if you stitch down the raw edges of each folded triangle when you make the tier.

For a pair you’ll need:
2  10” squares of muslin
About 1 yard of print (45” wide)
About ¾ yard of solid (45” wide)

Or enough for…
From the print:
32 5” squares
2 10” squares
From the solid:
24 5” squares
2 scraps (something over 2 inches)
10”+ square to make bias binding (or 2” x about 60” of bias binding)

Cut out your 5” squares. Iron them in half, wrong sides together.
(If using the yardages, there is a step saver– cut (widthwise) three 5” rows from the solid and four 5” rows from the print. Iron the whole strip in half length wise then cut in 5” intervals–you’ll have eight per row. And the excess from the solid is good for the scraps needed.)

Next, iron the two corners down to make a triangle, all raw edges should be on one side.

Repeat for all.

Mark the center of you muslin by folding in half twice.
Place the scrap in the center. (This makes it so you won’t ever see the muslin peeking through. If you wanted to you could just use a 10” piece of the solid instead of the muslin.)
Starting with a solid triangle, pin in place as seen.

Repeat three more times then hand stitch the tips of the corners down.

For the next tier, place a print triangle 1/2” from center folded seam of the solid triangle as seen in the picture. Repeat 3 more times. Then four more times.

Then repeat for two more tiers: solid then print.

Next I flip it over and use a compass to mark a centered 9” circle on the back and cut it out with a rotary cutter. You can use whatever method you want, just make sure it’s centered. Flip it over and you’ll have a nicely centered circle.

Then pin the 10” square of the print on the back, wrong sides together, flip it over cut off the excess.

Now for the bias binding. It VERY important that its BIAS binding, meaning its cut diagonally on the grain, because this is a circle. (When I first attempted to make these way back when, I used straight grain binding and well, lets just say I ended up throwing them at the wall in frustration.)
You can do continuous binding if you know how, but this is a small project and I just cut and stitch each strip together separately.
Cut out a 10”+ square from the solid. (I say + because that’s about the smallest size you’d need to make enough binding. If you used the yardage then you would have something like 12” leftover.)
Cut 2” wide strips diagonally. You’ll have about 6 strips of various lengths, that’s enough. Then sew them together like seen in the picture so you have a nice long strip of binding.

Pin the binding on the front, wrong side up, folding back the under end. (Does that make sense? Fold back one end 1/2″ ish and pin the other end on top.)

Then stitch about ¼” from the edge.

Flip the binding over to the back, fold it under and hidden stitch.

Mine are always a bit wonky so I iron them nice and flat.
Repeat for the next one. And tada. You have a super sweet gift, for you or someone else.

Obviously, you don’t have to use prints and solids; I just wanted this to make sense. I think it would be cool to do the tiers in fading shades of one color.

You can also make square trivets by using
From the Print:
16 5” squares,
8 5 ¾” squares
8 7” squares
From the solid:
8 5” squares
16 5 ¾” squares
Starting with the smallest ones and working your way up, do the tiers the same as the round ones. The only difference is when you fold the 7” squares fold in half diagonally first then bring the points down so it makes a square. And obviously, cut a square, not a circle. ;)

I can’t remember but you might need 12” blocks for the backing and muslin of a square.