Wednesday 31 October 2007

Happy Halloween!

I find it hard to understand why anyone should be wished a Happy Halloween, as the whole notion of Halloween is about ghosts, witches, horror and death, but I suppose I'm in a minority with that thought! Anyway, although it is an American tradition, I will welcome any children who come trick or treating tonight with my lovely pumpkin hanging on my front door! (Quite what they'll make of it, I'm not sure!) . Tonya corrected my last post, in that the paper cutting wasn't meant to provide templates for the block, but was just a way of learning how to think in strips. The blocks are all free pieced. Thanks for that, Tonya - just shows how patient I am, that I can't even manage to read the instructions properly!


The writing at the bottom of the hanginging doesn't stand out too well, but at least it throws the emphasis onto the pumpkin!

My friend Jane has lent me a fascinating book called 'Stars by Magic' by Nancy Johnson-Srebro. It shows how to make lone star blocks without cutting triangles or dealing with the dreaded Y seam. Of course, I had to have a go and instead of starting with the easiest block (block 1, would you belive?) I started on block9. Here are the pieces I cut for this block.

All squares and rectangles, but quite a few of each, as you'll agree.

The block is very impressive, and the instructions are very clear, but beware - even on Halloween, magic doesn't come into it! Accuracy comes into it, and as you'll see, if you look closely at the block, I had to do a bit of fudging to get the diamonds to fit together, and I think more fudging will be necessary if I want all my yellow diamonds to have points!

One downside for this method is the left overs, which are not insignificant. (They aren't really fuzzy like this, I think they jumped when I clicked the camera.)

Nancy helpfully says you can 'discard the cut off triangles or save for another project'. Discard the triangles! Who is this woman that she can cheerfully drop large pieces of fabric into the bin? I've got into the habit of saving crumbs to make Chaos Crumb blocks, so the idea of dropping a triangle of fabric which is half of a 6 inch square into the bin, isn't one which appeals!

However, these are minor criticisms. The book is great and has clear instructions for 30 different star blocks in up to 10 sizes, and certainly cuts out the tricky Y seams. Now I have to decide what I'm going to do with a 12" lone star block. Perhaps I'll put it in my UFO box for now...........

6 comments:

Sew Create It - Jane said...

I was just thinking about you today wondering if you were enjoying the books. :o) Seems or "seams" you are! Your star looks great! Wait til you've seen the ones I did for you know who! and I've used the extra bits to make coordinating blocks.
TTFN

loulee said...

Your stars look great.
Here on the Isle of Man we don't have Halloween, we have Hop tu nae! Altogether more sinister, but made fun for the kids.

Andrea said...

What a great block. Lone star is on my to-do list.

katepang said...

Magic stars, what a great idea! Karol-Ann obviously loves tagging, as she tagged me with 5 qs on creativity - so now I'm tagging you!

The meme is on my blog, and then, if you wouldn't mind, please tag another 5 people!

Halloween involves guising rather than trick or treating here in NE Scotland. Thankfully...

Sew Create It - Jane said...

TAG you're it! Details are on my blog. Play along if you like ;o)

Tonya Ricucci said...

Congrats - the quilt is really fun. I guess I don't think of "horror" horror with Halloween. It's all fake horror. Having fun with the end of everything. Besides, as a kid it's all about the candy!