Geri B

Encyclopedia...that's the reason for the detailed precise description.......? How are other blocks described? Does a square become a four sided , 90 degree something or other? Don't have that book, so don't know ......

I call first one easy, second one y-seams, diamonds.....stars..

BETTY62

I must need new glasses as they look like the same pattern to me. One just appears to be cut a little bigger than the other one.

BettyGee

Why do they do this to us? Don't they realize we have important matters to attend to? The second one I have always thought of as the LeMoyne Star, but boy is it similar to the top one. Rhomboids? I'm still working with hexagons and parallelograms, enough already. How about a nice HST?

bearisgray

The reason for asking the question is because I want to do a monolog ( tutorial?) On the similarities and differences between the two blocks and I wanted to call the blocks something more or less familiar to people.

ghostrider

If you want to get technical (accurate) about it, the top star is composed of rhomboids (adjacent sides are unequal lengths) and the bottom one is composed of rhombuses (all sides are equal length). It's like the difference between a rectangle and a square, but with non-right angles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhomboid

I learned the top one as Eight Pointed Star and the bottom one as LeMoyne Star (aka Lemon Star). The proportions are different between the two no matter how they are constructed (inset seams, HST's, etc). The top one is a 4-patch block and the bottom one is a 9-patch block.

bearisgray

I did not know the difference between rhomboid and rhombus.

ghostrider

And now you can check off the "learn something new" line on today's 'To Do' list. *wink*

bearisgray

I wonder how many people actually know - or care - about things like that?

Sometimes I do get "the great eye-roll" on things like this - but I've found being specific - with the correct terminology (when I know it) - to be useful.

Interesting observation - I think of the top one as a 16 patch drawn on a 4x4 grid - but it could also be thought of as an uneven 9-patch block - Just found one in the Brackman book with the same size and shape of pieces - but different "coloring" - "Sarah's Choice, #215, page 266.

I've never thought of the LeMoyne star as an uneven 9-patch block.

I think one of the most fascinating things about the LeMoyne star is that all the interior lines are the same length (assuming one makes diamonds for the star and uses unpieced setting pieces on the sides) (and assuming finished size block). (the exception is the outside edge of the setting triangle - that is approximately 1.416 times the length of the other lines).

I can draft fairly accurate LeMoyne type star things if I set up a grid of with 10, 7, 7, 10 squares on each side (or multiples of those numbers).

I can also draft any size LeMoyne type star by using a square of paper and then play connect the points.

gramadona

ha ha ha ha ha

ube quilting

I call the top an 8 pointed star and the bottom a Le Moyne star. Plain and simple.

What I find interesting about this , imho is that most of us are using geometry and don't even know it and probably said "What will I ever use this for?", when we were in school. Am I right?
peace