Saturday, February 14, 2009

My Lucky Stars!

Here is my block for this week.
But before you go saying anything nice, just be forewarned!
I cheated!

Yup! I cheated! I just couldn't see the 'point' of using 69 pieces of fabric just to end up with an 8 inch block. So I increased everything by 50%. Now I have a 12-inch block that I like. It still took me three hours to complete though. But because this block had a lot of sew and flip pieces in it, it was a good learning tool. I always seem to have trouble getting the points neat and sharp when I use that method. So I used this block to practice that technique on. Instead of just sewing a square diagonally across the corner of a piece, I drew a line on the back of the fabric where the seam was to go. I used an ordinary ruler and a pencil. I used a larger square of fabric and trimmed the piece after sewing. It worked! But it was a lot of work and I still don't like the sew and flip pieces!

7 comments:

Brenda said...

It's lovely. I like the marbled fabric.

Donna said...

"sew and flip" is hard with directional prints I think -- It's hard to decide which way to get what laying to give the best effect when completed.... I really like your block -- the fabric is fun, and the star in the centre of the block shows up realy well.

Vicki said...

Love your fabric selection and the neat marble fabric. Also I might borrow your idea to make the block 50% bigger, the thought of dealing with little HSTs is scary.

Unknown said...

Tat marble fabric is beautiful. It almost has a bargello effect to it.

Great job.

Librarynan said...

WOW, Hetty... Great color/fabric selection. I, too, didn't see any point of making a square so small I'd never be able to see what I was doing - and loads of piecing as well. I finished re-calculating my squares' sizes before I read your post, and it is good to know I guessed right on the 50%... maybe it doesn't sound like rocket science, but I don't do math (odd for a quilter, yes?)

Carol E. said...

I am thinking of increasing my block size, too. I'm glad to know it worked out so well. I love your block!

Julie in the Barn said...

Your block is beautiful. Maybe I need to increase the size, too. I'm hesitating on this block because it has so many pieces in such a teeny block!