Simple Star

 

I am always thrilled with how simple and beautiful a basic 12 inch star block is.  It always makes me want to do an entire quilt.  

These will be used for a Christmas themed quilt I am working on but they are so beautiful, I thought I would share it with you.  Such an easy pattern for any quilting ability level.  

The center square measures 6.5 inches. 

I was tempted to use this as a foundation for a bunch of gold and yellow strings but opted for a simple solid yellow for the entire star.  

You will need to cut 4 corner squares of the blue 3.5 inches.  

The star points are a flying geese unit.  Blue 3.5 X 6.5 with Yellow squares cut at 3.5 inches, then mark the diagonal and sew.  

 

You end up with 4 lovely flying geese units.

Sew two of these to the opposite sides of the center square, making sure you sew through the cross point.  Then sew the blue corners to the opposite ends of the two left over flying geese units.  Then assemble.  

One width of fabric of my blue gave me all I needed for one block.  

Hope you enjoy sewing this lovely star if you choose to do so.  I would love to see what you make!  

Here is a peek at another new project I started.  It is from my husband's old jeans, my stash of ribbon, and machine embroidery- Design from Sweet Pea.  It will end up being a tote bag someday.  I only make a block or two a day and I need 16 before I can start assembling it.  And it has to take its turn with about 100 other projects....

Happy October!

Back to work...

Back to work in my library.  Here is the decoration for my office door.  We do a different decoration on each door so that we can tell students easily which office to go to -there are four doors in a row on one side of my library.  We still have two of the four doors to go this year...

Once you go through the portal, this is what you see...The Dumbledore quote says "Words are an inexhaustible sort of magic capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it."

Harry Potter quilt finished and hung in its permanent home.  I have had lots of great comments on it.  I may never leave my office again...

I actually finished the two graduation quilts -finally -so after they are gifted today, I will post pictures!

Last week, I had a very unique running buddy on my trail run...

Greetings

Hello friends, fellow runners and quilters,
Thanks so much for stopping by.  I am a quilter of more than 20 years, an on again off again runner who hopes to make it a consistent lifestyle now that my nest is empty and I have no legitimate excuse, a High School Librarian-former World History Teacher, who happens, today, to be celebrating my 23rd anniversary of being married to my best friend and supporter.
I have blogged in a few other places, listed in the side bar as soon as I get around to it, and have decided that I want to corral it all here.  I hope you will join me in my adventures.
You will see quilting, running, family stuff, book reviews, poodles and other pets, and the quest to downsize our 2500 square foot home.  I hope to see new and familiar faces as I journey through this next phase of my life.  Please join me.  I will try to make it interesting and informative.  I try to offer free patterns and tutorials on occasion and will also be setting up a little etsy shop for some of the more involved patterns I create. 
I have a serious quest to use up the 20 + years worth of fabric stash that I have been collecting and curating.  The goal is to only purchase fabrics that are absolutely necessary to help me use up what I already have. 

  

Here is one of the latest UFOs that I have pulled out.  It is the littlemissshabby rainbow row along located at http://corianderquilts.com/rainbow-row-along/ .  It was started by my quilt group a few years ago and I have most recently added two rows and then realized that I did not have near enough of that fabric to continue so, luckily, I found one fat quarter set that I was able to order.  It will hopefully arrive soon so that my enthusiasm for finishing it does not dwindle.  I have mostly followed the pattern up to this point but will be making a few rows of my own in order to finish up.  Its really not even half finished yet.  

This is a quilt I have recently started for my daughter.  It is my own design.  Again, I ran out of the background fabric with just a few more blocks to cut, ordered more.  When it arrived, the ink was brown instead of the grey I had already started using so I ordered again.  Hopefully it will be here in a few days as well.  

I created some jar blocks but was not that impressed with them so they have gone into the closet to await more inspiration or a decision to donate them to the guild.  We will see.  

The most recent long run was 5.5 miles.  My first trail run.  Bear Canyon is actually right on the edge of town and runs between neighborhoods in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains.  There is no shade, it is mostly cactus with plenty of scrub brush, but it was a very pleasant hike/run.  The way up is actually a deceptively challenging climb which I mostly hiked.  The way back down is a very pleasant run where I did not come close to my max heart rate.  I am looking forward to our next trail run in a few weeks.  I am supposed to run 9 miles with the group on Saturday but have a family pool party so will be on my own to do it Friday or Sunday.  I will have to think about where that 9 miles is going to take place.