Block 8: Simple Star

Oh, are those frollicking elephant puppies on a yellow
background? Yes, yes they are.

There are several star blocks in this quilt. I think there is one named for each season and then this one, simply called "Simple Star". It is about the most basic star pattern so the name is apt.

I hosted a debate on my Facebook page once on whether if something was "deceptively simple" that meant it was easy but looked hard or hard but looked easy. I'm not sure we ever settled it so I can't tell you if this block was deceptively simple or deceptively hard, but I basically did it twice since I had to redo so many steps.

First thing I did after pulling out all the fabric, was cut apart the wrong piece for the star points. The star points start as a larger square and the first thing you do is mark some lines and then cut it into quarters. Well, I confused my fabrics and cut up the wrong square. I noticed this on the next step when it didn't match up with what I was supposed to sew it to.

I guess that's what happens when you cut your fabric ahead of time and then don't mark what the pieces are going to be used for.

Then a lot of the pieces that make up the border (with the star points again) didn't come out to the right size so I resewed some seams to adjust that. This was pretty easily done since I could resew the seam with the old stitching in place and then pull out the first seam afterward. (Can I say again how easy it is to rip out hand sewing compared to machine sewing! It's also less damaging to your fabrics.)

But then all the pieces were the right size, I cut out a new blue square for the center and everything went together beautifully. I like the soft look of the square and that the blue ears of the elephants match so well with the blue fabric in the center. (Did you notice what that fabric is? Little red riding hood. There are little wolves concealed in the print.)

And here is the mock (or virtual) layout with all the blocks so far:

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Here is my sister Kim's block:

Aren't those pretty colors!?