With the completion of Block 7, I am halfway through my sampler quilt Reach for the Stars, featured in a seven-part series in Quilter’s Newsletter magazine. Here is my Block 7:

Here it is on point, as it will be in the finished quilt:

I opted not to put appliqué circles in the centers of my black squares, as called for in the original design. Instead I inserted a fussy cut image in the center square, making a square in a square.

And now for a full progress report: the first seven (of what will be 14) blocks surrounding my center medallion:

The center medallion will have a strip of blue sashing next to the black that’s already there, and the individual blocks will have black or green sashing, depending on their final placement in the quilt. The sashing will greatly enhance the finished look of the quilt, as you can see by looking at Terry Krysan’s original quilt:

If you take a close look at the picture above, you’ll see that many of the blocks contain half-square triangles or square-in-a-square components. I used to spend a lot of time and effort marking sewing lines on my fabric pieces to make units like these. Not any more! In my next post, I’ll show you a little sewing aid I made out of template plastic that eliminates the need to mark sewing lines on my fabric pieces, speeding up block construction considerably. (You would think I’d get my blocks done faster but I still spend way too much time auditioning fabrics — and then second-guessing my choices. Time to start that process now for Block 8!)

Speaking of Block 8, Jennifer Gwyn of seamscrazyquilts.com has already finished hers (as well as her Block 7). Check out her site to see pictures of her lovely work in progress.

Thanks for stopping by!