Making a former
You will need a strip of card 'turreted'
You need two pieces cut from the end of a pool noodle or a piece of pipe lagging and two pins
Wrap the ‘turrets’ tightly around the larger piece of noodle ensuring the exact number of turrets required (12 in this case). This is fairly easy to do with a computer as you can enlarge or decrease a diagram very easily.
Place in the straw design.(See 'how to' below)
Rest the smaller piece of noodle on top of the design and hold it in place with the pins while the star is tied
Using the former to make a star
1. Take a former. Remove the pins and lift of the top portion (the lid). Place carefully to one side.You will notice there are 12 ‘gaps’. Imagine these are 12 spots on a clock face.
2. Select 6 straws of a single colour.Lay them across your former in gaps of 6. You may imagine that they are in the clock postions of12-6 1-7 2-8 3-9 4-10 5-11
3. Then select 12 straws of a single colour and lay them across the former in any of the following three patterns.
Repeat with another 12 straws of a different colour in a different pattern.
Option 1 - A pattern of 5's
12-5 1-6 2-73-8 4-9 5-106-11 7-12 8-19-2 10-3 11-4
Option 2 - A pattern of 4's
12-4 1-5 2-6
3-7 4-8 5-9
6-10 7-11 8-12
9-1 10-2 11-3
Option 3 - a pattern of 3's
12-3 1-4 2-5
3-6 4-7 5-8
6-9 7-10 8-11
9-12 10-1 11-2
4. Place the lid on your former. Try not to pierce the straw with a pin
5. Look carefully at your straws. Check that you have the same number protruding from each gap and that each straw is shiny side up.
6. Bind the edges and cut as described below. (If you find this very difficult, you can cut and then bind but your star will be smaller).