When Susan said she wanted stars for her month in Brit Bee, I went straight to my pin board, ‘Things To Make – Quilt Blocks’, knowing that I had a few stars on there. I looked at the options, then looked at what people had already done (I might have mentioned I’m late? *ahem*) and my eye lit upon this block that I had pinned from Simply Plain Jane.
Now I have no idea how I came across this, but still, I’m glad I did! She had taken this pattern from Anna Maria Horner, and created this texty colourful mash up. Susan had sent us a pile of fabrics in one colour family, along with some Kona Cola for the background, so I switched things round to make a colourful star:
I’ll admit that I probably didn’t approach this in the way AMH had planned, or, in fact, in the way anyone else has tried it, but I decided that paper piecing was the way to go here! My first problem even for the templates, was that the shapes are on the PDF right to the edge of the page, and even flipping round and printing on A3 I still ended up with bits being trimmed off by Acrobat, so I had to complete some lines here and there. After that I marked the included seam allowance on every piece (did I mention there’s 40 in total?!) and cut them all out. Grabbing my lapel stick, I glued each template piece on to the relevant bit of fabric, cut them all out, and started to sew them together, paper still in place.
On the whole that approach worked very well for me – I’m not sure that with all the odd angles coming together that I would have been able to match the joining points without doing this to be honest, although I will say now that the piece with parts 1, 9 and 10 is labelled incorrectly on part 10 for where it joins part 1, and that that whole section gave me the most trouble in the assembly process. Oh well, I’ve got that pattern out of my system now ;o)
I'm just about to write a blog post but just saw this – amazing! Totally inspiring and looks like you are back m'lady! I may have to steal this quilt when I visit Susan next 😉
LOVE this Katy!! I'm going to have to steal this.
This is awesome, woman you have some serious skills!!!
WOW!! This is really awesome! I am in serious awe of your abilities!
it's gorgeous and Susan will love it!
Incredible block, well worth all the hassle!
It's wonderful!!
Cool block – the colours really pop. I think AMH must have some mad sewing skills, because I never want to follow her template methods to making blocks – I would have paper pieced this one too, or foundation pieced it.
Oh that's fabulous! Susan will be over the moon I'm sure!
Wow I just have to have a go at this. No idea how, but I'll just dive in. Susan will love it
That's seriously awesome. Now I can see why you had 40 pieces!
Its worked a treat!
Oh I love it! But I can tell you if I were to attempt that there would be lots of cursing and fabric-paper combos in the shredder with "I hate FPP!" spray painted on the wall. I love paper piecing, but if you give me too many pieces I make a big stupid mess of it. but I suppose if you have the patience to make bears you have enough for this 🙂
I'm afraid this is just amazing. Mojo is back and taking names!
Woohoo!!! Expolosive!!
Smashin' x
with your mojo firmly returned Susan is going to have a lovely quilt to remind her of her talented friends.
Everyone is right – Susan does love it!!! Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!
I wouldn't have even attempted this so you get a big tick from me just for that . But that block is so wonderfully gorgeous that it was worth all the faffing about I think!
What a fab. star. Especially Christmas time, it could be called the Christmas Star block.
hugs
Looks good! Well worth the trouble
Stunning block K! Well done! Jxo
Very nice!
Well done missy!!!! That is such a stunner!!!!
Man she is going to have the best quilt. I sure think you should make room for a Canadian in that bee.
Wow love your version – Susan is a lucky ducky!
I love Both! late is worth the wait this time!
Totally gorgeous!! I love that AMH cushion and your block looks amazing 🙂
Oh. My. Goodness. It's so beautiful!