Tree Toppers Christmas Block

I'm today's designer in the Quilting Gallery's Celebrate Christmas Quilt-Along!

My block is called "Tree Toppers".

Download PDF Tutorial here
or
here

(If you can't download it, please email me at twiddletails(at)gmail(dot)com and I'll send it to you.)

When I designed the block I was quite convinced that the stars were classic star blocks but I haven't been able to find a star like this or a name for it anywhere!
The tutorial is pretty comprehensive but it does assume that you know how to make half square triangles and, I thought, the basic star. Apparently not.
So....here's a photo tutorial for making the squares that are the points of the stars.

First make a half square triangle (or two, since they come in pairs).

(You can find a more detailed tutorial for HST's here.)

Then cut two squares the color of the star, and the same size as the half square triangles.

Draw a diagonal line corner to corner on the wrong side of each square.

Place a square right sides together with a half square triangle.

Sew 1/4" away from the line on both sides.

Note how the seams are perpendicular to the seam on the half square triangle. (You can see it showing through the fabric in the photo.)

Cut along the drawn line and press open.

You will actually end up with 4 of these:

Another thing:
In this tutorial you will be cutting squares in multiple sizes.
To ensure that you don't get lost in a maze of squares, I recommend grouping them by size as you cut.
You can even label the little piles with Post-it's if you want, but I just laid them out from large to small:

The fabrics I used to make my block are:
Moda Marble Dots - Yellow
What a Hoot Dots - Green
Squiggle - Lime
Hallmark Christmas Snow Flake Circles - Blue
They are all available in the store.
I've also added the tutorial to the free patterns in the store, so you'll be able to access it at any time.

Don't forget to visit the Quilt-Along home page and have a look at all the other wonderful blocks!
Oh, and you can post photos of your blocks to the Flickr group and have a chance to win some very pretty buttons!