Paper Starfish

Hello Anything Goes Bee-mates! *If you're not a bee mate, I hope you'll still check out my newest quilt-in-the-making and let me know what you think!*

We'll be making 20"x30" blocks for a confetti quilt. I made a gallery on Flickr to give you ideas.

Everyone will be getting a half yard of Kona Ash for the background and a pile of scraps that look like one of these:

There are pieces in your scrap pile that are way bigger than you need. Feel free to keep all scraps. I love collecting little scraps from bee members and there is some Mendocino, Prince Charming, Picnic and Fairgrounds and other goodies in there!

I started by cutting the scraps into different sized squares and rectangles. Please don't go bigger than 4" square. Feel free to go as small as you like. Then I cut some strips of Kona Ash and and chain pieced the scraps to the Kona like this:

I cut my Kona strips 3" wide and I think it was too wide. I might have wasted too much this way and you won't have too much extra Kona with which to play. Once you get lots of scraps surrounded by Kona start laying them out and see how you like them like this:

Once you have a layout you like, fill in with some negative space (Kona Ash) and start seaming together.

Here is a block I made that's finished:

Some tips and guidelines:

1. You will have a lot of seams. Try to minimize unnecessary seams so things don't get bulky. It will make it easier for you while piecing (and me while quilting)!

2. Please don't make any sort of pattern or order with your scraps (ie. all one color family or uniform size/placement). I'm going for a random look. Please stick with squares and rectangles for the scraps (no circles or shapes like plus signs, etc)

3. Aim for 10 - 18 scrap pieces in your block. There are 15 in my block.

4. You might not have lots of extra Kona Ash. I had to work carefully near the end to get my block to size without running out.

5. You can click on the pictures above to make them bigger and easier to see.

Sound good? I'm excited. Let me know what you think or if anything is unclear!