This week has been one of catching up on a couple of projects and reshuffling my stash again. Last week i decided to make a Friendship Star block. It turned out to be a frustrating time for me. How hard can it be to make one small star? I found out! I had the most beautiful jelly roll strip in royal blue so that was my choice of technique. There are a number of ways to cut the HSTs. I used my Easy Angle ruler to cut all the triangles. A wornout rotary blade was no help. I had to rip at least three times to get the star sewn together when it ended up backwards.
I had two goals for the star, doing something with blue and making more stars for my patriotic star quilt. With time on my hands, I used the Magic Eight technique, my favorite HST technique. It worked well, but I had cut two large squares of a different blue. So I ended up with four more stars, two with red centers. They are all six inches.
I've been poking along with my Fence Rail Stars quilt.
Now I'm adding extra blocks to the bunny backing. Fortunately I am able to make good use of the blocks that I cut too short. Here is the first part of it just finished.
For the new neutrals color I'm at a disadvantage, never having worked with them much. I really had to dig everywhere to come up with what I hope will work. These scrappy blocks for my improv quilt are really the only neutrals I've done.
I'm looking forward to see how you friends work with the neutrals. Hopefully by next week I'll be able to produce something neutral. I know some of you are gifted that way. We will see what this color junkie can produce.
For more scrappiness take a look here. I link up with
Rainbow Scrap Challenge at
Bonnie Hunter gives me so much inspiration with neutrals
ReplyDeleteIt is strange that at times we can piece the most complicated stuff and it goes like a dream, then a simple block defeats us, such is life. You still ended up with some lovely star blocks, although maybe not the ones you had planned on. I really like the panel you are adding to the backing, panels give backing a lift in my opinion, they become so much more interesting. I use them to widen a standard width of fabric backing for lap quilts and it's a great way to use up your reject blocks too, win win.
ReplyDeleteAlways good to tie the front and back of the quilt together some way. Left over blocks are a perfect solution. Those darn friendship blocks - some friendships are easier than others.
ReplyDeleteNice blue stars! I understand your troubles with them, though. I always struggle with them too. They are deceptive! Love the rail fence stars!
ReplyDeleteHi Paula! I love your improve blocks! Friendship Stars are a bit fussy (HA! try the variation with 8 of the 9 patches being HSTs!) but you get in a groove after awhile.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what I will do with my LIGHT NEUTRALS, but I'm sure we will BOTH come up with something. Good luck!!
ReplyDeleteLearning to work with neutrals was a process for me too, but once I got started, it added a lot of fun to my quilts. Love the bunny backing. Your "mistake" I. Cutting the blocks too short is my favorite part.
ReplyDeleteI really like your patriotic friendship star blocks, Paula! I know how you feel about them being trickier than they look. I made a friendship star wreath that I really had to be careful with - there were multiple HSTs in some rows that were turned in different directions on purpose, and I got myself confused more than once!
ReplyDeleteI love the friendship star block! Your projects are all turning out great.
ReplyDeleteI had to smile when I saw you use the term color junkie. I like it! I am right there with you. I have noticed over the last year that I had very few neutrals in my stash at all. Especially when certain things started calling for them. I am trying to broaden my horizons a little.
ReplyDeletemaking small is always harder for me than big HSTs. Love the 8 method but not the four way version. Seemed to have missed soscrappy colour for the month like you not too keen on neutrals so dull and I will always opt for a black or brown for sashing etc rather than white. Frence rail star looks so good, after seeing yours I checked out the video and have made one but used scraps of various widths for mine and yes used off white for the stars but they seem to stick out like a sore thumb on mine
ReplyDeleteYou did a great job finding some neutrals in your scrap bins. Your blocks are lovely. And I really like your strip of scraps in that backing. Thanks for linking up with Oh Scrap!
ReplyDeleteI really like your rail fence star quilt, and adding the too-small blocks to the back will make the back as fun as the front.
ReplyDeleteYou always have so many lovely projects on the go, I really like the look of your blue stars.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the trick with neutrals is to push it as far as you can - so to black at the darkest end, but also the browns, in my book, could go all the way to gold, to the palest versions of most other colours, to muddy greens like you have in your improv blocks.
ReplyDeleteafter seeing yours I checked out the video and have made one but used scraps of various widths for mine and yes used off white for the stars but they seem to stick out like a sore thumb on mine
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