Block 25: Winter Star

This week's block was the Winter Star. Obviously we did not keep the seasons in mind as we scheduled the blocks. It's been warm and gorgeous this week.

The pattern starts by making these units:

There's a left rectangle and a right rectangle. Those are pretty easy to put together with the "flippy corner" method. But then when you sew the rectangles together, you have to match two seams to make nice points. The seams are pressed the same way so the placement is less secure while you're sewing the seam.

All this is to say that I sewed the four units like this together on a wing and a prayer and had one come out good enough to keep. The other three I had to undo half of the seam to fix one of the points. I still considered it a victory to have one of the points work out in each unit. :) With the second sewing, the rest of the points were good (enough). And I could move on.

You may have noticed that I used different orange fabrics. I didn't have enough of any one orange that I liked but I did have plenty of orange scraps from a pumpkin block that's coming up later. So I picked out eight different fabrics and placed them in matching pairs. (Their match is not the piece they're sewn to, but the one kitty-corner--the one that would be their "corner" in square dancing, if that means anything to you. You'll see why this is when the block comes together.)

The rest of the pieces were fairly straight forward and the block went together like this:

This block had more matching than some of the others. Besides the points in the units discussed above, you also had to match the diagonal lines with the red squares. As I recall, that did not require any ripping and re-sewing. Perhaps because I made sure to trim all the units to the right size before sewing them together. (I didn't trim off much at all, but it can make a real difference.)

And here are all the blocks done so far in a virtual layout:

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Here is Kim's block:

She chose a beautiful piece for the centre of the star. I find it interesting how her block reverses mine--blues and purples where I have oranges and reds and red where I have blue. It draws your eye in a completely different way. Quilting--a never ending adventure! :)