czpainter I really love your colors (um, lack of colors?) the shades you picked look so good together.
Rose, I love the scrappy quilt star too, I think it would be fun to make all the blocks scrappy. I have no stash so that doesn't work for me.
Nelda and Linda those are good tips. I left the Paper Piece pattern attached to the first block I made so I could use it as a reference for where future colors go if I liked that pattern. (The green one I posted that shall remain solo.) Glad your thumb is better already Linda!
I'm using paper piecing paper now, it can stay in the quilt as a stabilizer and I may just leave it in since I will probably not wash the fabric again.