Susan, you really conquered that star. It's wonderful to see how people learn from this site.

I do sleep, honestly! But I am a night owl. You won't catch me up too early in the mornings if I don't have to but I do stay up until about 2am most nights. DH is an early bird so we split the morning school run 3:2. I get a lot of sewing done in the evenings after everybody has gone to bed. It's my quiet time.

Renata wrote: I used to worry about Rita plugging away during the wee hours of the night, too, Renata. Then I realized that it's actually not a problem for her... she doesn't require any sleep! I think I can prove it. If she wasted any time sleeping she would not be able to get so much done! Your star looks great, Susan!

suehenyon wrote: Umm - whatever size it come off the camera (7mp)
you've got 1 block in the space we usually squeeze a whole quilt into, that is probably why it looks huge.

By the way, this picture looks huge to me. I pared it down to 450 by 450 pixels. What size pictures do others use?

Now I can relax. This took awhile, taking lots of breaks. The background pieces did get easier as sewing progressed, but my marking was off & I found that I trusted my quarter inch marking on my machine more than my pen marking.

Hi Susan, yes I did use Edyta's measurements and just added 1/8" to the squares, and only the squares and that works well for me. Margo it is possible that my 1/4" foot wasn't accurate but I did allow for the pencil markings. The triangles are easier to inset than the squares. Those squares are just so fiddly but once I got it figured out...

I just want to say that I really appreciate all of your input yesterday. What would we quilters do without the internet and TQS? In my case, the answer is I would be just a bad would-be quilter. Thanks.

thank you TQS for great show.
beautiful stars rita.
i need to try it soon

OK...I think I have figured it out!! I made a star this morning, and although it is a little puffy I didn't get as much extra fullness as Rita did.

If you will go back and watch the video starting at about the 14:25 mark pay careful attention to what Edyta says about allowing for the width of the pencil mark!! If we make all of those pencil marks just a smidge too wide, it will cause too much fullness in the diamonds!!

[url]watch/[/url]

You might also want to check your sewn 1/4" seam allowance and compare it to your marked seam allowances to see if there is a little discrepancy.
[url]learn/classrooms/[/url]

If you multiply a couple of threads by 16 seams, you will get more than 1/8"!

PosyP wrote:
Thanks for this hint, Rosemary. I really like the Le Moyne Star and hope to master it like Rita did. I didn't realize the printed Project was out. I looked at those directions late last night & those measurements appear to help a lot.

Rita, did you use those measurements and add an additional 1/8" to your square.
Thank you. Your blocks are beautiful.

Rosemary I am very tight with fabric too but I just couldn't get it to fit right by fudging it. Never mind, I will use all the discarded pieces for some other project some other time.

suehenyon wrote: Sorry you had so much trouble with the inklingo. Rather than putting freezer paper on the face of the fabric, I have successfully super-starched my fabric, so that it is as stiff as paper and then run that through my printer (making sure the lead & side edges are sharply cut)

Great looking star Rita.
Personally I wold have been fudging the seam allowance for a one off block, rather than cutting new squares - but that is me, tight with fabric

Way to go Rita! Don't you just love it when people comment on how patient we quilter's must be. Instead I think we are impatient but persistant. We are impatient with results that are less than we want and absolutely persisitent when it comes to sticking with it until it comes out like we want it too. Congratulations, Rita. Thanks for sharing your struggles. I think we all know more about how to go about doing this block. It's good to be reminded that all of us have to practice to get the results we want. That's what's so great about this Forum. Not only do we get to see the end results but we get to see what's involved getting there.