How to Draft a Five-Point Star in EQ8 for English Paper Piecing

Are you a fan of English Paper Piecing? Or maybe you’ve been curious about trying it with a small project.

​If so, this tutorial is for you.

In this lesson, we’ll draft a five-pointed star in Electric Quilt 8 that works beautifully for English Paper Piecing. The surprising part? The entire star begins with the Ellipse tool in the Appliqué workspace.

Once drafted, we’ll also explore how to use the star to create a wreath block and a simple quilt design.

Drafting the Five Pointed Star

In Electric Quilt 8, open the Block Worktable and select:

New Block → Pieced and Appliqué → Easy Plus Appliqué

​Many EQ users think the Ellipse tool is only useful for drawing circles. But with a few adjustments, it becomes a powerful drafting tool.

Follow these steps:

1. Draw a basic ellipse.
2. Use Section by 5 to divide the ellipse.
3. Choose Convert to Patch.
4. With the Edit tool, convert the curved edges to straight lines.
5. Turn on Snap Aligned Segments.
6. With the Pick tool, select each triangle, then:
   • Clone
   • Rotate 180°
   • Reposition so the triangles snap together in pairs
7. Convert the added triangles to guidelines.
8. Add a node to the outside edge of each triangle.
9. Move the node to the outside point of the guideline.

You now have a perfectly symmetrical five-pointed star, where all four sides of each star point are exactly the same length—ideal for English Paper Piecing.

Five-Pointed Star Colored with Glaze fabrics from Andover

​Creating a Star Wreath with Wreathmaker

Once the star is drafted, you can easily create additional designs using EQ8’s Wreathmaker tool.

Start by creating a wreath of five stars, then add an additional star in the center for a striking focal point.

This simple transformation shows how quickly a single block can evolve into a more complex design.

Five Pointed Star Wreath Block

Designing the Five-Pointed Star Quilt

Next, place the block in a quilt layout.

Create a Horizontal Quilt Layout with one block. For my quilt, I set the block size to 20″ × 20″, but you can adjust the size to fit your project.

For the borders:

• Add 1″ horizontal borders on each side of the center border.
• Between them, create a diamond border.

To echo the geometry of the star, set the number of border blocks so the diamonds visually align with the five star points. I used:

• Border width: 2″
• Blocks: 8 horizontal and 8 vertical

​This creates a border that reinforces the star’s structure and rhythm.

Five Pointed Star Quilt

Five-Pointed Star Quilt Video Tutorial

For a full walkthrough of the drafting and design process, watch the video tutorial below.

Construction Suggestions

For construction, I recommend English Paper Piecing the star units, then appliquéing them onto the background.

EQ8 makes it easy to generate the templates you need.

​Print:

• A template without seam allowances for the EPP papers
• A template with seam allowances for cutting fabric

To simplify printing:

1. Delete everything except one template piece in the block.
   
2. Print both versions from EQ8.
   

English Paper Piecing Templates from EQ8

Tip for Users of Electronic Cutting Systems

If you use an electronic cutting system such as a Cricut Maker, you can generate cutting files from EQ8 templates.

Here’s one method:

1. Print the templates from EQ8 to a PDF writer.
2. Import the PDF into Inkscape.
3. Save the file as an SVG.
4. Import the SVG into your cutting software.

Inkscape is a free, open-source vector graphics editor available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

One important note: always double-check the scale when moving between programs. Some software—particularly Cricut Design Space—can change sizing during import.

​​​Happy quilting.

​Kari

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