Aunt Mary's Star Blocks

a simplified version

We’ve already passed mid April? Nice! I am counting down the days to when we get the keys to our new house and the painting can begin. I still have weeks and weeks to wait until May 28, but of course there is plenty to do in the meantime.

Like, for example, sewing my monthly bee blocks for do. Good Stitches!

This month we’re tasked with sewing 12” finished quilt blocks called Aunt Mary’s Star. There’s a tutorial here, but I confess to never having read it. I heard from my bee mates that the tutorial involves sewing a myriad of half square triangle blocks (HST’s), each which finishes 1.5” square. That sounded tedious to me, so I set out to discover an easier way.

These were my initial fabric choices. We’re to sew with bright, clear colors and solid white. I’ve pulled out my flying geese ruler, with the idea that at least some of the HST’s can be replaced by flying geese blocks.

Along the way I discovered that I could also replace some HST blocks with stitch and flip triangle corners (see right side of above image), sewn on a triangle base shape. Usually I avoid stitch and flip triangle corners, since they waste fabric; but, at such a small scale, a little fabric waste is a good exchange for saving time.

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Here are the patchwork ingredients of my simplified Aunt Mary’s Star. My method, in addition to being faster, also creates less seams. Less seams mean less fabric used and a cleaner visual look. Cool.

But at this point I realized that I could have simplified even further! I sewed pairs of flying geese blocks with the white triangles tips touching. Instead of that construction approach, I could have sewn hourglass blocks - simpler and cleaner still.

My finished quilt blocks are clean, bright and happy. They’ll go off to April’s queen bee to join the others in a collaborative quilt for charity.

It was my pleasure.