Bee Blessed Starflowers for April

This month our Bee Blessed Block is the Starflower block.  We have asked for blocks with a coloured solid background (not our usual white) with contrasting scrappy stars.  I think these will look brilliant when they are all gathered together.   Why not have a wee look at the ones already popping up on our flickr page?

Told you they looked good, didn't I?

Given that some of you lovely peeps have already been dashing off your starflowers I thought it was time I got my bum in gear and added my contribution for the month.

I went with green solid and am still waivering as to whether it was a right choice or not.  It was supposed to pick out the green in the two blue prints but I'm not sure that worked quite so well as it did it my head.  Oh well, here they are anyway.

If you fancy joining us and making a block or two to donate to Bee Blessed, there are two different tutorials you can use this month to achieve your 12.5" unfinished block:

Ellison Lane Quilts tutorial very usefully provides the cutting measurements for making two blocks at once.
Modify Tradition has the measurements if you just want to make a single block.

Go on, you know you want to!

Sampler Block Progress

Seems like ages since I posted the first two blocks for my MIL's special birthday sampler.  In February I feel like I've either struggled to have time to sew, or spent that time keeping up with things with closer deadlines. But I haven't forgotten my plans to keep ahead with the sampler blocks.  So this week I have some new additions to share with you.

First up is this weird looking block -

Quatrefoil block

It's the quatrefoil block but my placement of that plaid fabric is doing something squiffy with the visual effect.  I didn't foresee this problem and hated it at first, but I'm getting used to it.  The pattern was from the Modern Blocks book and pieced together very nicely.

Starflower block

Then, I had a wee go at Modify Tradition's starflower tutorial.  I've wanted to make one of these for a long, long time but just never seem to get around to it.  I think I also have to be in the mood to tackle HSTs because the perfectionist in me hates when the points get lost.  This block proves that HSTs can be worth the effort though.  I love it and hope this won't be the last one I make.

Mosaic block

As a wee bonus I stitched up a third block this month - the mosaic block.  I did try to find a tutorial online but wasn't successful.  It wasn't too hard to figure it out myself though and I think I might even manage to hold on to those points once the sashing is added at a later point!

It's fun to choose individual blocks for a sampler quilt, but it's also hard not to get carried away and want to make every block I come across.  Decision making is difficult because there are just so many options - feels like being a child in a sweetie shop.  Wonder which blocks I'll come up with next?