The February Star BOM is an original design by Jerrie1940. It is a beautiful paperpieced star which you can download here.

If you are new to paperpiecing, you might want to go to Quilter’s Cache and try their paperpiecing tutorial. You can find it here:
http://www.quilterscache.com/StartQu...tingthree.html

Jerrie 1940 has attached a cutting list, which is very helpful. The star looks much more complicated than it really is. You do need to make four of each pattern. The only tricky part at all was to make sure that you start the #5 piece on each piece high enough that it would cover the corner of the pattern. Other than that, things went together quite well. There are a lot of seams that come together in this star and I found that it worked much better to press all center seams open (the seam sewing each block together and the seams sewing the blocks to each other).
I hope everyone has fun with this one.

I've been waiting for the Feb. Block! This is going to be a challenge for sure! Ok off to bed with me! I can now dream of points and paper piecing! :) what colors... oh my! nite

Oh My!
Sure is pretty!
I printed off the pattern and I'm going to make copies tomorrow.
Looks like I better make a couple extra just in case I mess up!

Beautiful! Can't wait to try it!

I have been so excited about Feb star bom!! So glad its PP! Love it!!

Oh, it's beautiful!!! And I'm glad that it is PP :P

Yikes, you expect me to make that. Well, I joined this BOM to learn new techniques. I'm game.

This looks fun. And in my colors too!

Hooray!

This will be the first time for paper piecing for me! I'm game, downloaded the lesson pages as well. Wish me luck!

I am really excited about this pattern!! :thumbup: Thank you Jerrie1940 for designing this great star block. Now to pick out my color's!!
:D :D :D :D

Thank you Jerry1940, that is a beautiful star. Thank you for sharing it with us all. Hopefully we will be able to do it justice.Mine will have to wait for the weekend, when I can sit and look and patiently sew it.

Wow! This is a beautiful star. Mind is whirling with questions, concerns, and mostly excitement. My stars are in dark blues and whites so this will be difficult to choose fabrics. I will print at work this week and sew on Sunday. Can't wait to see how some of you speedy sewers handle this!

Oooohhhh Pretty! Looking forward to making this one!

Can't wait - since it is "still" cold out - will spend time today figuring fabric on this beautiful star pattern. Thank you for the challenge and enjoyment in these BOM's

The February Star BOM. Is there a Jan. Star BOM?

Oh my goodness! Just what I feared! Paper Piecing! UGH! I have been avoiding learning how to do this because it looks so complicated! Well, I have joined this BOM to learn new techniques and I even bought new bright fabric to stretch myself even further. (I tend to like muted colors). So, off I go to try this. Wish me luck!

I've never paper pieced - so here goes!! I am combining my Star BOM with another that project where you use different color each month to create a monochromatic design. The design is your choice. February's color is Violet. A violet Star will be created soon!

Woo hoo! Hope to work on it and the house block next weekend.

What a beautiful star. I can not wait to get started and I love pp.

here is my version I want to keep my stars to a very minimum of fabrics so I cut out some of the points, also I am not a very good PP.

You're star is great! how did you do it so fast?? You are good at PP as far as I am concerned!

I like yours, very pretty.

Very nice job. I love your colors. You seem to do a good job at pp. If you have time, you should try it again with all the pieces. Of course that is easy for me to say... I have only printed the pattern so far. :-) Keep up the beautiful work.

wow, I think this is way above my skill level
David

You won't know until you try = ;) ;) ;)
I too am going to have to overcome my insecuritues and give it a go.
We will all learn together :!: :!: :!:

Yes, the January star is here: http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-90615-1.htm#2268699

David, this star really isn't difficult at all. I did it two different ways to see what worked well. The first I did as regular paperpiecing (of which I am not a big fan) and then I did it using the freezer paper method where you fold the pattern on the stitching lines and then sew right next to the paper. There is no paper to be removed and I found it worked lots better for me. I found a tutorial for those who haven't done the freezer paper method that you might want to look at. It is at

http://www.twiddletails.com/store/in...age=page&id=21

The only tricky part I found with this star is that when you stitch the #5 pattern piece you need to make sure that it is high enough to cover the point of the star or you'll be doing some reverse sewing (ask me how I know!). As a matter of fact, when cutting your strips for this star, I think I would cut that #5 piece just a little bit longer than Jerrie's instructions.

Also, when sewing the pieces together into the blocks, I pressed the seams open and it helped a lot with all the fabric coming together in the middle.

Other than that, it was an easy star to make, not nearly as hard as it looks.

Thanks JudyG for the link and the encouragement :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Yup Judy Thank you from me too.
Time to put on my big boy pants! LOL
David

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's stars. Don't forget to post on the picture thread for February:

http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-99903-1.htm

And if anyone has problems when working on this star, let us know. I'm sure someone will be able to answer all questions.

This star is beautiful, thank you, can't wait to get started.

Me too.

could you show us a picture of the "back" of your block, to give us a better idea (i'm a newbie) of how we should press the seams?

yorkiemom gave me a good tip on PP, don't cut your fabric to size just cut it to aworkable size and then sew and trim to a 1/4 seam allowance AFTER you've sewn it, especially on the angles I could never get it sewn right, after I tried it her way it worked like a charm. I just started doing PP with the Jan House BOM. Now I've done 6 and it gets easier with each on. The last two were after yorkiemom's tip and it went sooo much smoother lol

I just saw at my guild meet ,the freezer paper method. I may try that method with this pattern.

Well it is finally time for BOM #2, will work on it this afternoon. Thank you!

Short and Sweet, here's a picture of the back of my freezer paper pieced star. It's really hard to see anything, but if you look closely, you'll see where I pressed open the seams where I sewed Part A to Part B of each of the four blocks and pressed the seams open . (This is the diagonal seam from the corner of each block). Then you can also see where I pressed open the seams where I sewed the blocks together (vertical and horizontal seams). It really reduces the bulk in the very center of the star, which helps a lot.

I thought this was going to be a fun block of the month how is this thing going to fit in with the Jan 15th block??????

I'm having trouble printing the directions/pattern.
My printer does not like the color I guess!
I only print in grayscale and the lines seem to be too light so only a blob here and there is printing.
Interesting.
I'm also making 6" stars instead of 12".
I'm trying to get it sized on my monitor then I will just trace it off that I guess but I seem to be able to only go from 50% to 33.3%.
I'll keep trying.
It's a lovely pattern.