Lucky Star #5

I finished my 5th Lucky Star tonight...and I really like it. 

When I first got the fat quarter bundle of purples, it was a little overwhelming to have so many shades of the same color (22!). To help myself organize them, I separated the fat quarters into warmer and cooler purples. For the first four stars, I made two with the warmer purples, and two with the cooler purples. In this star, I mixed the warms and the cools for the first time, and I think it worked very well.

Overall, I really like this star. The light purple strips didn't end up lining up exactly right, because some of them ended up just a smidge wider than the others. So they look a bit off in the final product, but not enough for me to rip out the stitches or redo the block!

At this point, I have used all but one of the 22 purples that came in my Kona solids bundle. The last one is so dark and has so many cool or bluish undertones that it looks navy to me.  I'm not sure if I will end up using it at all. 

The only issue I am having so far is that three of my blocks have finished at 12.5", but two are only 12". I made sure that the one-inch square scale on the templates was correct, so I'm not really sure what's going on with that. In any case, I'm planning on sashing them or setting them in the final quilt in some way that they are a bit separated from each other, so I'm sure I'll be able to make it work in the end. 

I'm wondering why it took me so long to finally start making these stars. Well, besides work-kids-husband-house-other projects...but really! These are so much fun to make, and each one feels like a mini-finish all by itself. Finishing a star block is so much more rewarding than finishing any old block!

Next up will be the June, 2013 star.