The First LeMoyne Star Block

Groovy Star on a Kaffe Fassett Background

Once I had all of my star pieces stacked and whacked it was time to cut out the background pieces. All of this cutting was simple. It simply involved cutting two sizes of squares and then cutting the squares into triangles. I have four fabrics for the background colors for the stars. Three are Kaffe Fassett prints and one is from FunQuilts via FreeSpirit. I'd show you these prints, but I'm fighting scanner problems tonight, and it's late, so they'll have to wait until a later post.

At any rate, I just finished getting all my cutting done before I headed off to the second of my two stack n' whack workshop classes. In this class, we focused on piecing the blocks and optimizing the process so that we could employ chain piecing instead of working on one piece at a time. It was in class that I also decided to change how I was going to put my stars on their backgrounds.

If you look at the star (above) you'll notice that it can be divided into 4 quadrants. I was going to use a separte background color in each of the 4 quadrants. However, after laying out some of my squares that way, and then trying out the stars on "solid" backgrounds (like the one above) I decided that I liked the solid backgrounds better. So now I will have 12 stars, with 3 stars on each background color.

For this first star (which is the third star, right side pictured on the post two days ago), I opted for the Kaffe Fasset "Roman Glass" print in pink to work with the pinks in the floral pattern in the diamonds. I'm pleased with how it came together. My sewing is far from perfect, but I did get some great pinning tips from our workshop teacher, Jan, that helped make this block a lot better than it would have been if I had muddled through on my own (I'll try to document the process in the future). The over all result makes me happy, as most of the lines that need to match up, do match up and the center is no where near as wonky as it could be. Not only that, but the block is 12.5" x 12.5" -- exactly the size it is supposed to be at this point (not something I accomplished with my 9 patch blocks). A pretty good first attempt, I think, and I have high hopes that it will only get better as I work on more blocks.

Initially I was a little worried about my background prints, but I think this one does a nice job of providing a foundation without overwhelming the star. I think it's also compatible with being a baby quilt -- it was suggested a few times in class that my baby should love this given all the bright colors and contrast.