Wonky Stars

I decided that my liberated patchwork quilt that I revived this week needed a little something extra in addition to the black sashing--something as the cornerstones.  So I decided to make 3" (finished) wonky stars as the cornerstones.  These, again, are made with Gwen Marston's liberated quiltmaking techniques.

Since I want these to finish at 3", I am starting with 1 1/2" black squares to which to add the triangle star points.

I also used 1 1/2" squares, cut in half diagonally, for the star points, and sewed them onto one corner of the black square, making sure that the triangle would cover the corner of the black square when folded down.  I pressed that corner down, then added another triangle to the opposite side.

Of course, these all had to be trimmed down to 1 1/2" squares once the star point triangles were applied and pressed.  That's the fussy part of this whole process!

Then the block gets assembled in rows.

And that's where I ran out of steam for the evening!  I'll get these blocks sewn together tomorrow and start on the next round as well!

Revisiting a UFO

I've been thinking a lot lately about all the unfinished projects in my life, and specifically about all the unfinished quilts I have in boxes and bags all over the house.  I seem to have a talent for starting quilts, but not for finishing them!  I decided that I absolutely MUST finish some of these quilts before starting any more quilt projects.

So today I dug out these blocks that I made many years ago.  They started life as 6 1/2" nine-patch blocks made from scraps, and then (those many years ago) I read Gwen Marston's Liberated Quiltmaking, and I suddenly saw these simple 9-patches in a new light.  I cut the nine-patch blocks down at different angles to 4 1/2" blocks (4" finished) and then started to play with framing them in black with slivers of different fabrics added in.  And there they sat, for the aforesaid many years.  There were only 14 of them, so not enough to make a very big quilt.

But in my newfound zeal for finishing things, I decided that it was important to complete some of these old projects, even if they ended up being small.  (I kind of have a thing about making bed-size quilts, or at least quilts big enough to nap under.  I'm not exactly sure why I'm so fanatical about making large quilts, since I also think that quilts are a legitimate art form and can hang on a wall quite happily with other art.  But I digress...)

Anyway, I pulled these out today and decided to put them together in a quilt top.

I decided that I needed one more block, to make a total of 15 blocks that I would set 3x5 in the finished top.  So I pulled out this little 9-patch that had been pinned to my studio wall for some time, cut it down, and started adding a black frame around it.

Then I started the process of adding 3 1/2" sashing around the blocks.  Here is my progress so far.  I'm pretty pleased, even though the new black fabric I bought yesterday for this purpose is darker than the old black fabrics I used in the blocks so many years ago.  I have just resolved not to let that bother me!

I'm still not sure if I'm going to add another border around the whole thing when the sashing is complete, and if so, what color that border should be.  But I can decide that another day.  For now, it's enough to have pulled out an old UFO and made some progress!