Wednesday 30 April 2014

WIP Wednesday - Designing Paper Pieced Stars

Seeing as I won't make the deadline for the triangle-a-long this weekend, I figured, as it's a Bank Holiday here this weekend, to try and make some headway on my baby Medallion quilt.  The last round planned for this are some stars and 4 hearts in the corners.  The whole design when finished should look like this:


Yes, it's very busy and I hope very colourful. I'm not even sure how to begin toning it down if I ever wanted to!


I scaled up the 3" hearts in the inner border to 4" and 6" for the last two borders. I've been playing with star shapes trying to figure out what will work best for the quilt.  The last border will be 6" and my original design above had a fat star with 6 points.  There are lots of ways to make a 6 pointed star, EPP diamonds, piecing with triangles or inset seams but to try it out quickly I decided to paper piece. 

After a bit of trial and error I came up with a fat 6 pointed star and a skinnier 5 pointed star using both Quilt Assistant and EQ7 which now runs on my old Macbook.


Paper piecing was quick and I think I can get 2 stars from each 10" layer cake so not too wasteful of fabric.  The fabric I'm using for the Stars is a layer cake from Me and My Sister with Kona snow for the background.


With only a few seams it went together very quickly and what's great about paper piecing is all the points are protected, especially nice when making star shapes!


 So now I've got 2 stars made, I need to make a decision.


I'm leaning towards the second one on the bottom.  I'm hoping when pieced together they will make a lovely chain around the quilt to finish it off.  What do you guys think?  There'll be 40 stars in total so 39 more to go!

Linking up to

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced
Sew Fresh Quilts

13 comments:

  1. How adorable! Lots of interesting designs going on with that too. I particularly like the skinny stars. Well done! :-)

    http://www.busyneedle.ch

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  2. Dropping by from Let's Bee Social, I'm for the skinny second star, looking great :D

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  3. I like both of them! If you have to make 40 - why not do both and alternate them? Just a thought.

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  4. The five pointed star really appeals to me, too! I am sew glad to see how your progress each week, Ruth!

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  5. I like the shape of the one on the bottom. On camera, this doesn't look just colorful. What a tremendous amount of work for a baby quilt. I can only assume its a VIB Very important baby. Just love the mix of fabrics. Very chic actually. How are your puppies? I always like to see what they are up to.
    LeeAnna Paylor
    Not Afraid of Color! lapaylor.blogspot.com

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  6. The skinny star has my vote. I'm sure this quilt will be loved by baby and Mum,

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  7. I love the bottom star too. This is such a happy quilt!

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  8. What a gorgeous, and very ambitious baby quilt :) I love it!!! That hexie hot-air balloon is the most precious thing ever! I would go with the bottom star too.

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  9. Incredible. The hot air balloon takes the cake. Oh my, what a great idea. Those hexies are so tiny...how in the world? So much work. Just sooo lovely. Amazing job.

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  10. Beautiful quilt! That center has some amazing details!

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  11. Hi Ruth - sorry for the weird comment here but I cannot figure out how to reach you otherwise. Can you drop me a line about the Global Scrap Bee..we are moving from Flickr

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  12. I think I like the 5-pointer too.
    I don't think your quilt will need any toning down. It is bright and cheerful, but it also has plenty of light space for resting the eyes.

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  13. I love the 5 point star, any chance you will share the pattern??

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