Just playing...

It's been a pretty productive June in my sewing room.  Two RSC blocks, Lyra, a placemat, and the finished top for the Little House sew-along - that's pretty good for me!

So - the last few days I've been playing with a new block.  I first saw this one on Gail's blog, The Cozy Quilter, back in March, I think.   I was drawn to the circular look of it, and that it was made out of quarter star blocks - one of my all-time favorites.  So I asked Gail for some pointers on how to make it, and she kindly sent me some!  (Thank you, Gail!)  There's also a short video tutorial about it on YouTube - just search for "Going in Circles Quilt Block."

I started by making eight quarter star blocks...

which was actually a mistake!

Because when I got everything made for the block and laid it out, I realized I was going to have to sew it together with partial seams.  Now that's not a deal-breaker, but I thought there was probably an easier way.  

After another email to Gail - how did you sew this together?! - and watching the YouTube video - I figured out that I only needed to undo two blocks to get this together.

Next time I make one of these, I won't sew the squares and HSTs 

of the quarter stars together until it's time to make the rows!

The quilter in the video made his block with all two inch squares.

I used a 5 inch square in the center and 

2 x 3.5 inch rectangles for those corner pieces.

I have also spent some time quilting on the never-ending Patchwork Hearts project.  It's going to be finished one of these days!  This is row 4 of 5, so I'm getting there.  

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.