That's really nice! Thanks for showing it to us! It sounds like you've inspired some people here!

Nicely done ccbear66. Great color selection.

I can see two ways to do this. Paper piecing is probably the easiest and most accurate.

1.) Take a piece of paper. Draw a 6 1/2 x 6 1/2 square on it.
2.) From the lower left corner, draw a line diagonally to the upper right corner.
3.) 1/2 way up ( 3 1/4 inches from the bottom line) draw a line straight across the big triangle on the lower right.
4.) Mark a point on the bottom line 1 3/4 inches from the left hand point. mark another point 1 1/2 inches from that point to the right.
5.) On the line you drew half way up, mark a point 1 3/4 inches from the long diagonal. Connect the two points together that are 1 3/4 inches away from that long diagonal line.
6.) Mark a point on the halfway up line 1 1/2 inches from the first point you placed on that line. Connect the point on the bottom line with that point.
7. Mark the lowest right corner triangle 1, the next stripe over 2, next one over 3, then the top triangle 4.
Make 4 copies of this pattern. Make a matching pattern for the other half of the quarter pattern going the opposite way. Make 4 copies of that pattern too.

Paper piece them in the order of the numbers you put on the drawings.

Put two matching 1/8s together to make a square.

You should come up with 4 squares, each 6 1/2" square. Put together for a 12 x 12 inch square.

tim in san jose

Great directions, Tim. I agree--paper piecing is the best way to get all those angles to behave. My only addition to the plan would be to either get out a pencil and do some shading on the patterns to keep all the colors straight, or draw color-coded dots with colored pencils. Learned this hint from experience! Oh well...extra dupicated bits of blocks do make interesting scrap quilts, right?

It is really nice... I do not think I could do as well making that block..

Very nice. I like your color combo.

The colors are wonderful!! You did such a great job!!!

Thanks everyone for the kind comments on the block. The pattern is from a book called Stars by Magic by Nancy Johnson-Srebro. All of the patterns in this book are diamond-free stars from squares and retangles. No Y-seams. I'm am going to try to make some of these stars in my color sceme to go with my Birthday swap blocks to make a bigger quilt. I really like this book. The only drawback is you waste some fabric but I'm putting all of that fabric into my scrap bin so that I can someday make a string or scrap quilt.
I'll try to post pictures of my blocks as I do them.
Thanks again

Barb

What a striking block. I like it! It has a patriotic theme to me and since my anniversary is on July 4th I tend to be drawn to things with a patriotic theme. I agree with Tim, paper piecing method would probably be easier. That said, my suggestion would be to turn your block over and measure your seam line. I would suspect your machine or your foot isn't giving you an exact quarter inch. If it isn't, play with your machine or where you insert the fabric against the foot until you get an exact quarter inch and I bet your unit pieces will line up better for you.
~Tiffany

This is the second block made from the same pattern. It was a lot easier to do and I think it turned out better than the first. This is one of the birthday blocks that I'm going to send out.

Very pretty, I love the yellow and blue.
Good job :thumbup: :thumbup:

Pam