RSC Project for 2019

I have several new projects I would like to make this year.  One of them is Ancient Stars, a Sue Garman pattern. This is not a fast, speedy, whip it up in a month quilt, at least not for me.

I first saw this pattern sewn into quilts at a Jane Stickle Retreat. Three friends had challenged each other to make the quilt and they were showing them in Show & Tell. Each friend had made the quilt in a different color scheme, red/black, cheddar/black and a green/brown combination. They were all beautiful! It made me want to start sewing stars immediately. I ordered the pattern when I got home from the retreat, it has patiently waited several years on the bucket list.

I have a LOT of civil war fabrics so that's what I'm using. The center of the quilt consists of 4-1/2" finished Ohio star blocks, a lot of them! If I make 10 Ohio stars a month for 10  months, I'll have all the Ohio stars I need.

I'm going to make my stars in many colors but I couldn't decide which color to start with. So for 2019 I'm going to sew along following the RSC color of the month. The QST's will be the color of the month.

Here are the 11 Ohio stars I've pieced for January. I know I said I need 10 a month but I accidentally cut extra triangles so I sewed 11 stars.

The bottom right star is not an Ohio star, he's an evening star. The Ohio stars are for the center section of the quilt, there will be an outer border of evening stars. I made one evening star to test my paper piecing pattern, it's correct.

Yes, I'm foundation paper piecing these stars. They're still not perfect but they are more correctly paper pieced than if I were making them without the paper. The paper piecing is my own addition to the pattern, they were not provided in the pattern.

I need a bazillion 1" finished HST's too. I'm also sewing those for the RSC even though I sewed some black ones this month. Here are the first 60 of many to come.

I am using Thangles for paper piecing these little guys.

When I first decided to make this pattern, my intentions were to make it exactly like the pattern. Then I thought about how much more interesting the center would look if the Ohio stars were placed on point, my favorite way. Then I thought about a couple of other changes. I'm not sure how this quilt is going to look when I get him completed but one thing for sure, it won't look like the picture on the cover of the pattern.

For now I'm going to concentrate on piecing the HST's and the Ohio Stars, the evening stars will happen in 2020. Like I said, this is going to be a slow, long term piecing project but I've made the start.

Linking to Show Off Saturday, Scrap Happy Saturday, Oh Scrap