What do you think of my Stargazer Lily Block? This is the block Lisa Jo Girodat designed for Moda’s 2021 Summer in the Garden Quilt-Along. She offered directions for a 6″ and 12″ finished block. I made the larger one and in retrospect I am glad I did. It looks like a rather simple design but don’t you believe it! This block was quite a challenge to make.

For starters, look at the center of the block. Do you see that it’s a square within a square and that the smaller square (set on point) contains two flying geese blocks? Those flying geese blocks finish at 2⅛” x 4¼”. I made mine oversize and used my regular 6½”- square ruler to trim them to the correct (but unusual) size. I wound up fussycutting the darker floral fabric surrounding the lime green triangles to eliminate lighter shades in the print; the point of that was to maintain maximum contrast with the green.

The aqua fabric is an older Lonni Rossi print that looks a bit like seaweed. It’s a directional print so I had to pay attention to placement when I sewed the individual triangles in their assigned spots. I wanted the direction of the seaweed to rotate as your eye travels around the block. (Think of seaweed undulating underwater.)

Finally, there are four intersections in the block where seven seams come together. I eliminated a seam at those intersections so I only had to match six. My points lined up very nicely, although I will allow that a couple of seams required some corrective sewing. A seam ripper may have been involved.

I drew Lisa Jo’s block in my Electric Quilt software program because I wanted to test my ideas for color and placement before cutting into my fabrics. In this next picture you can spot where I was able to eliminate seams in the block design:

Here’s the Stargazer Lily block in EQ with my final color placement:

I am loving the way my block turned out!