Quiltbabble

I created this quilt drawing after seeing an award winning quilt at a machine quilting show.
I see this quilt as representing a love quilt...a wedding gift, an anniversary quilt, a graduation quilt, a house warming gift--I see everyone gathered around in a circle of love celebrating with a "special person" (or family if you think about the three stars in the very center).
To make it I clicked on Layout and chose 1 block that was 32" square. I clicked on Borders and chose Border #1 (Border style - Blocks, all 16" wide, 3 blocks horizontal, 3 blocks vertical)
Border #2 (Border style - Long horizontal, all 18" wide)
Border #3 (Border style - Long horizontal, all 1/4" wide -- my binding)
The quilt is set up. Now for the blocks.
The center block is 32" square. Click on Block, Drawing Board Setup. Set it for 16", 32 snap grid, and 16" graph paper.
Notice that originally I had only two center stars, but chose to add a star in the center the same size as the other 12 in the circle around the quilt because the large block looked too simple. I drew the largest star first. Then I drew a star in the center square. And repeated that.
The four corner blocks are the easiest. You have a 16" square which you divide in half. Then divide one "of the halves" in half again. Draw a 8" star in one of those 8" squares. You will use this block 4 times in the quilt.
Next set up the measurement for a new Block 12" x 16" (16" is the width of the border). You will be adding background strips on each side of your 8" square star to fill it out to 12" x 16". This is where it gets a little "hinky". You will be placing the edge of three 12" blocks next to a 32" center which is just not mathematically possible. Luckily the computer just works with you. I used 12" because it was just easier to work with than say 11". When I made the quilt, I just trimmed off a little bit of fabric and it all went together. As you can see from the blocks on my design wall in the photos below, I just added fabric to the left and the right to locate the 8" star in the proper place for the circle to form. In my EQ drawing I drew it up, colored it in and inserted it into the quilt. If it didn't look right, I rotated it. If it still looked wrong, I studied it until I found the answer--such as move the drawing of the star in the 12" x 16" block so there was 1" more fabric on the left and 1" less on the right. Finally I got it just like I wanted. That gave me the confidence to make it. In the third photo shows how I would be adding fillers (sort of sashing) to make the side and top panels fit the 32 1/2" (with the seam allowances) center panel. It fit perfectly, but I was flexible myself.
Hope this answers the question.