For this post, I thought I would show you a little more of my process for designing/piecing my quilts.  No Electric Quilt software for me — I work with computers at my paying job, and I’m not interested in combining computers and quilting.

This project began with a box of vintage salesmen sample swatches — probably from the 1940s or maybe the 1950s. There were hundreds of prints (some with duplicates and different colorways).  All of the pieces were the same size (1 3/4″ x 3″) with a pinked edge. I drew a pattern of how I wanted to set the blocks and computed that I would need 1,488 printed diamonds (the dark setting triangles will be a solid — probably green). I drafted my template diamond to fit the quilt pieces and began starching, drawing & cutting (they were very clean and did not need to be soaked). Once the pieces were all cut, I began sorting them by color and matching up the six diamonds for each star.  I pinned each star’s diamonds together and put the 42 pieces for each block (represented by the white hexagon) in it’s own little envelope.

SevenSisters-5

SevenSisters-2

I hand pieced all the stars with a running stitch (I don’t like to paper piece) and pinned each block group together.

SevenSisters-1

Next I had to figure out the order for sewing the white diamonds to the stars and joining everything together. This is the trickiest part and I’m sure each quilter probably does it a little differently. For me, it works best to draw it out on a grid.  I decided to combine the 2 white diamonds and the triangle on the outside of the block into one long piece. First I stitched the white diamonds to their corresponding numbered star — then the stars are sewn together sequentially.  The long white pieces are added last.

SevenSisters-6

Here is a finished block.

SevenSisters-4