Lucky Stars Attempt #2

In January I joined the Lucky Stars Block of the Month club by Don't Call Me Betsy. I started strong and had a vision of jeweled colored stars used only from stash fabric. After a month or two I was almost dreading it. My vision was falling very, very, very short and I was running out of fabrics I wanted to use. And did I mention I wasn't liking my blocks at all?

Fast forward a few months and a fair amount of paper piecing experience later and I had a much better vision. I wanted really warm and bright tones, something that would fit in with the summer, when all we need on our bed is a light quilt, and keep me happy in the dark doldrums of winter. "Luckily" my stash had grown by then and I only needed to add a little bit here and there to round it out.

So far I'm loving this series. Not every one of them is a hit of course, but when it's all assembled I think it will really come together.

I have dreams of having this done by Christmas, but only have 4 out of 24 done (I signed up for both 2013 and 2013 patterns). Oh and then I plan on hand quilting... so maybe Christmas 2015??

Lucky star

I'm still cruising on the blocks to catch me up for the January Lucky Stars 2013 and 2014 blocks. I wasn't psyched with the light turquoise vs dark turquoise points when it was all said and done. And I also realized that, with my love of the gold cotton ball fabric I'm about to run out of it. Might have to break my fabric diet and get some more gold fabric...

Still loving how the colors are all going together!

As with all these blocks, I'm realizing how very off the finished sizes have been. After doing some good old fashioned Googl-ing, I realized that my method of 1/4" seams, using the side of the presser foot, is very off. Maybe fixing that will make these a little more even!

BOM: Lucky Stars 2014 Bonus Block

Last night my husband went over to our neighbor's house to watch the football game and I had 3 wonderful hours of sewing and was able to knock out most of the Bonus Block for 2014. It went so much better than my first attempt! The center is still a little wonky, but much much closer to on point than the other. And I love the colors. I know the Kaffe Fasset swiss chard fabric gets a little lost in the floral, but I like it. They are looking a little more kaleidoscope than stars, but I'm loving it!

But then I noticed how much smaller my first block (right) is than the the second block. Nearly 3/4" on each side! Clearly I botched that first one big time. I like the design though (or how the design should look) so I'm definitely going to take another go at it when I have some free time.

When I decided to do a BOM club and found Lucky Stars I accidentally purchased the pattern set for 2013, not 2014. I like to think of it as a happy accident of course. So I'm doing both 2013 and 2014 at the same time to end up with 26 blocks at the end of the year. I finished January 2013 today (it was a super quick one!), but I've realized my little iPhone does it's best at the top of my stairs in the daylight, so I'll photograph tomorrow!

BOM: Lucky Stars January

One of my Technical Goals for 2014 is to work on my points and "exact sewing". One of my Application Goals was to do a Block of a Month club. So when I happened upon Don't Call Me Betsy's Lucky Star BOM club it was perfect!

A lot of BOM clubs patterns seem to be a little old fashioned, which isn't my style, but I love the look of these stars! I decided to really tap into my stash for this one and not buy any fabric for the blocks (sashing, border, etc. will be a different story) and to make the stars as vibrant and jewel like as possible.

I was cruising along and thinking I was rocking this. I really like paper piecing. It feels so controlled. As I put together the "rays" together I was never off by more than a sixteenth inch here or there (pretty good for me!).

Then all the pieces were put together and the center looked like this (I really need to start taking photos in daylight, not under my dining room light!):
 

And another side looked like this:

Grrrr... So frustrating!

But here's the whole shot...

And if I ignore my terrible center and the wonky connection AND that this wasn't actually supposed to be the order of the fabrics... I like it!

I like how the colors work together. I like that most of all of the points line up (except of course for the glaring center). I like the visual that's developing in my head for the final product. That's a fair amount of likes for my first star (trying to be positive here!).

So here's what I'm taking from this one...

Technical:
-Be more careful with cutting the 1/4" seam allowance, especially on the centers of each ray
-Press carefully and accurately after each fabric addition

Practical:
-I love my seam ripper

Now the hubs went over to the neighbors to watch the football game so I'm going to continue with my evening of decadent sewing!