Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Art Group Tuesday

Today I will be teaching wonky stars in my art group. Here is a photo of all the wonky blocks I have made as practice so far.


I am making all of these to finish at 9" and am using mostly reproduction or Civil War-ish fabrics so that all the blocks will play nicely together. These are all made from scraps out of my bin. When I first started quilting I really liked these fabrics and made several quilts with them. My tastes have changed, but I can't bear to throw away good fabric, even if I don't like it anymore. Once I get a good number of blocks, I will piece them together, quilt it and donate it to charity.

My first blocks were the log cabin blocks. Then did the rail fence blocks. Now I'm on to stars. The first two I made, the bottom two in the photo above, I don't like as much as the last one, the right most star. The first two stars I made, I cut three strips - 2.5", 3.5" and 4.5". For the first one, left most bottom star, I crosscut the strips into 3.5" sections. For the second one, right most bottom star, I crosscut the strips into 2.5", 3.5" and 4.5" sections. In both cases, this results in some squares, but mostly rectangles as block pieces. So the stars are not centered within the 9" finished block. For the last one, right most star, I cut 3.5" squares only, so the star is centered within the 9" finished block. I think I like this best, but I can envision a scenario in which the off-center ones would be preferable.

4 comments:

Barb said...

That is alot of wonkiness...love it!

Deanna said...

The repro colors with the contemporary/modern/freeform piecing makes and unexpected and fresh combination. I would keep at it if I were you.

Molly said...

I'm not a big fan of that fabric either but it looks great in these wonky blocks with the light accents. I love the way these are turning out! This is going to be a fabulous quilt.

Mama Pea said...

Lynn, I really like the juxtaposition of the "traditional" civil war fabrics and all the wonky blocks. I sort of like the combination of some stars being centered in the blocks and others being off center. I think a combination will look really nice. I think this is going to turn out quite nicely.