Journey to Starry Nine Patch, with a brief sidetrip to Ohio

Now that the border decision has been made, the triangles and nine patches are flying along.  I had 57 nine patches left over from piecing the center unit and since I need 80 total for the borders, I've just got to sew a few more.  (For some values of 'a few'.)  (Because I'm planning to make 'a few' extras to guarantee variety, and because you can never have too many nine patches.)
And I'm madly sewing triangles to nine patches.  Stacks and stacks of triangles and nine patches.

And stacks.  And more stacks.

Since this is
mind-numbing 
slightly less interesting than some of the previous parts, I've started a small side project just to keep my brain fizzing.  (Wouldn't want those two hemispheres to get too comfy, now would I?)
And small is the key word here.  I'm in a small quilt group (that's small quilts, large group, btw) and we're doing a small quilt swap (again, small quilt, large swap).  (Adjectives are supposed to clarify things, right?  Hmmm...)
So anyway, if you answer 'yes' to all the following questions:

1. Is my name Liz?
2. Am I in the aforementioned small quilt swap?
3. Is my partner named Gayle?
4. Do I like surprises?

then you have to make a decision.  I'm about to reveal some of my work on the quilt for the swap, so if you want to be surprised, you should look no further on this post.

While you're deciding, the rest of us will look at this lovely bleeding heart that's blooming down at The Flat (which is where my sewing 'studio' is.):

Okay, everyone who answered 'no' to even one of the questions can now proceed.


Fair Warning.


Last chance...





I love quilts with stars.  (You may have guessed that already.)  Sawtooth stars, Lemoyne stars, 4-pointed stars, 6-pointed stars, 8-pointed stars, Friendship stars, Hunter's stars...  you get the idea.
A big favorite is the Ohio Star, and since I hadn't made one for a very long time, I figured it might be fun to make a small quiltful of them.
Experiments began.
I'm doing the cheating form of the hourglasses, where you just keep sewing squares on the diagonal until you end up with these:

Well, I guess it's not really cheating, but since it's so easy, it feels like cheating.  (Here's a nice tutorial, at a much larger scale than I'm working.)

I started with 2.5" squares, and ended up with 2" hourglass squares.  (Note:  I didn't use a full 1/4" seam allowance, because I wanted to see what the largest square I could end up with was.)
Then, just to be contrary, I trimmed down the hourglasses to 1.5" and pieced them into a star that finished at 3".

Right Brain was delighted.  "So cute!  So tiny!!  Let's make lots and lots!"
Left Brain was appalled.  "And so mathematical, yada yada, that's all very well, but let's be a little practical here.  Just how many fingers are going to be burnt in the process of pressing those little bitty 'so-cute' stars, hmmm???"
There's nothing wrong with practical, as long as you don't take it to excess.
So I made more hourglasses, which I didn't trim down to ridiculous proportions and made a block that will finish at 4.5", which is quite small enough, really.
Here's a picture of them side by side for comparison.

Yep, quite small enough.
I made some more:

and started playing with layouts.
Here we go again...




(And linking to 'Oh Scrap!' as usual - one of my new favorite hangouts!)