thank you all for the kind words.
barnbum, this pattern was the very first quilt i ever made. i took a class at a quilt shop and i made this in a twin size. we followed eleanor burns book and the teacher gave us a few short cut tips. the best tip she gave us was to use an ANGLER to sew the star points instead of having to draw a diagonal line on each 2 inch square you just line up the corners with the grid of the angler and sew straight across. very much quicker than having to draw those lines.
since then i have made several log cabins and this is the third one i have make with the stars. it isn't harder just more time consuming.