PROGRESS ON THE STAR FISH

Progress with fish fabric

For the last few days, I've been hand piecing my fish fabric Texas Stars and one inch hexagons.  This is my progress so far.  I started out with 33 Texas Stars.  Here I've used 32.  One lonely star left out.  See the pink/blue star to the left of the photo? I think I'll use her in the label.  I plan to continue with hexagons all around as a border to the stars...perhaps several layers of Hexies.  I have no idea how I will end up with this.  That's the fun of it...create as you go kind of thing.  Time to press it.  I've pressed as I pieced but now I believe my little project can do with another pressing before I begin adding the Hexie borders........tick-tock...OK pressing done.

Pressed

Pressing is time consuming.  I find it much easier to press each star as I go and when a row or section is finished to press that section.

Pressed star block -back

Time to move on to the borders.

Texas Star Fun

Nice day today.  I worked on my Texas Tumblers this morning.  Added another star, put the tumblers with dark diamond to the left.  Then wondering what it would look like if I turned the lightest diamond on the tumbler to the top, I inverted my photo.

I liked it much better.  I needed to change a few blocks here and there.  ...and here's the last go round.  I'm sure I'll make changes as the Texas Tumbler grows.

Light diamond of tumbler on top

This afternoon went to my 3rd Tuesday group and brought along some kaleidoscope Texas stars to hand piece.  Yesterday, I printed up some star points from Fish Fabric below  using Inklingo Star Points .05/1.00 plus .5 Hexagons and working on little Texas Stars.  I got enough for 30 Stars.

Mini Kaleidoscope Stars

I plan to put them together with one inch Hexagons or maybe diamonds pieced into tumblers.  I'll be using creams and beige fabrics for the Hexies.

Tumbling Stars

My design wall

Continuing to piece stars from Inklingo Star points.  I've changed my focus from colors

Tumblers separated by stars

to neutral stars.  Already have tumbling blocks that I pieced some time ago, but didn't care for the arrangement.

First arrangement of tumblers

 I have a bunch of these tumblers so I think I'll keep making the neutral stars to separate them and put them on my design wall and play and move them around until they seem ready to piece together. 

I'm really loving hand piecing with Aurifil 50 wt thread.  It moves through the fabric easily.  It's 100 percent cotton.  Love the feel of it.

Aurifil 50 wt Cotton Thread

TUMBLING STARS

Not long ago, I pieced some hexagons into tumbling blocks

But no...want something different.  So put some stars in the mix.  

Put this up on my design wall today.  

I think I need to rotate the tumblers a bit.  ..and maybe space them out on a field..hmm..so they look more like they are floating.  I'll give that a try tomorow.  I need a lot more stars...tumbling stars.

Put one Celtic Solstice block together.  Not as much fun for me as the stars, but then the stars are my design and the Solstice someone else's.  Half the fun is in the designing.

All the hand piecing was done using Inklingo and all fabrics came from my stash.

TEXAS STAR BLOCK

Texas Star

Texas Star Back

I participate in the Prairie Women's Sewing Circle at Quilt Heaven in Lambertville, Michigan.  Mary Clark, my friend and quilt instructor for the group, presented this Texas Star Block.  I immediately fell in  love with it.  Mary made a beautiful block using templates and machine piecing.  I find this method frustrating, so I used Inklingo to hand piece.  I used one inch hexagons, 60 degree 2 inch diamonds, and 1.0/2.0 inch star points.  

Ready to piece

I have been able to use up small scraps.  This has been a diversion from my Celtic Solstice.  All of my 3.5 inch blocks are done and now the top will be pieced together over the next few weeks.