New Year, New Projects, part 2

In the last post I alluded to a couple of new projects that have captured my fancy as this new year gets rolling. Then I proceeded to delve into a lengthy discussion of particulars involving the first project. I never got around to sharing the second project; I thought it best to hold off and do that in a separate post. 

I am making this quilt solely from a picture I saw online, making up my dimensions as I go. I saved a screen shot from Facebook, and not knowing that I would be so smitten by it, I failed to capture few additional details; the partial sentence with the photo mentions "Falling Stars pattern." A search through hashtags with that name brings up a wide variety of star quilts, and this same picture is there. Perhaps somehow I can come across the actual pattern. 

Before starting on 'Lucy,' I decided to cut out a few of the stars for this quilt. Like I have said, without a pattern, I was winging it. I took bits and pieces from other patterns to create the blocks I needed. If you study the stars, though, you will see that truly the only parts that are different are the corner units of each star. 

Are these gorgeous or what?!! I am over-the-moon excited to continue this quilt. Anytime I get to dip into my Kaffe Fassett fabrics, especially the blues, I become super-stoked to proceed. After making these two blocks, I took the pictures through an editing app on my phone and came up with two mock-ups.

The mock-ups show all the stars looking the same; the bonus for me is that the real quilt will have star centers of a wide variety of blue prints; it will be a veritable feast for the eyes.

My first focus, of course, is to finish 'Lucy.' Then I will return to this blue quilt. Maybe I should refer to it as 'Falling Stars,' since that is all I have to go on for now.  

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Flying Geese Units Galore!

When a quilter makes the decision to start a quilt made of stars, that usually means there will be a significant amount of time spent constructing flying geese units. For many, this is tedious work and often fraught with potential wonkiness. Dreaded work, these geese, but we forge ahead and try to make the best of it, knowing that the end justifies the means.

I recently started making a quilt that calls for 30 of these stars.

It's the cover quilt of this book by Lynette Jensen of Thimbleberries.

 

 

 

Work is commencing on the flying geese units, too. I try to break it up into steps or stages, and don't think about the enormity of making all of those units in their entirety.

 

 

 

I took all of my geese to JoAnn's yesterday to cut off the triangle of the one side. Got that accomplished, and am now ready to apply the other side. Slow and steady, one step at a time, and I will get them finished off. Once this step is done, the remaining star construction is easy-peasy.

 

There are other ways out there of making flying geese. I have seen others do them and have read about them, but have not personally tried them. I can see myself doing some experimenting, though. The alternate methods do seem rather foolproof.

 

 

The age-old question of keeping or tossing those triangles that are cut away rears its head at some point during this process. Look at the great little half-square triangle that results if those ends are stitched. Wouldn't a whole pile of these work great in some yet-to-be-determined quilt??

 

I'm keeping them. (I could show you the box full of similar triangles from previous quilts.) I will sew them together. Red and white quilts are pretty special, so this is a no-brainer, isn't it?

 

My thanks for November 28:

I am thankful for a well stocked freezer and pantry.

 

Happy Quilting, Friends!