No I didn't design this block it is from a book called Stars by Magic by Nancy Johnson-Srebro and no the red stripes are not suspose to allign. There is another pattern for a star in there where the stripes do allign. Thanks for all the kind compliments on this block. As I already said I'm going to try to make some of these blocks to go with my b-day swap blocks to make my quilt bigger. I'm also going to be using some of these stars to send to my b-day swap friends.