Step One

Step one in my new project was to sew all the triangle units together.  I got all 168 of them sewn together Friday night.  After 6 hours, it was nice to have them all done.

(That's half of them.  The other half still needs to be pressed and sized.  That's this stack!)

About halfway through however, I realized that the alignment on my machine was just ever so slightly off.  Not happy!  There's a group of blocks that are about 1/8 of an inch too small.  I think I can ease that amount into the seams without too much effort.  I decided with that bias edge that it would be worse to rip it out and resew than try and fudge my way through.  On the plus side, I shouldn't be loosing star tips.

What star tips you ask?  Oh yeah, I promised a pattern!

The pattern I am working off of is by Debbie Caffrey from her book "Another Can of Worms."  Here's the pattern from the book (on the left). I decided that the book pattern was too small and I wanted it bigger.  Besides, I had a jelly roll with 40 strips of fabric so I played around with it in Electric Quilt and came up with this second version.

I added a few 16 patch blocks and increased the stars to 42 by adding a few extra strips.  Overall it should measure about 62" by 78".   I'm thinking I might try and find the pink colored fabric in the bottom left from the photo up top to use in the border.  Soon I'll get to start putting blocks together and then I have to come up with a name for it!