Asian Stars for September

Forgive me for choosing my personal "go to" block for our September Lotto Block.

Asian Fabrics scored high on our survey last year and I when I was thinking of blocks to showcase all the gorgeous fabrics that are available to quilters, I naturally kept coming back to this block, which–believe it or not–was originally published as a quilt block with a name without a "star" in sight.

I give you, Square and Points, first published with that name in the Kansas City Star in 1933. I think that big center square can be used to great advantage to fussy cut and showcase any fabric, but this month, make it an Asian/Chinese inspired print. For your background, use a coordinating tone-on-tone fabric in any color that works with your focus fabric.

The "points" of the Square and Points block are part of a Flying Geese unit, with the background TOT fabric as the "goose" and the Asian print as the "sky." If you have been around a while, you already know that I'm going to introduce you to my personal favorite way of making those, also known as "no waste geese." For directions for this block (and a link to the general directions for making no waste geese in any size), click here: Square & Points Quilt Block.

Kate made the beautiful example above, as well as 8 of the blocks below. Linnea made the ninth block. Hover over the blocks to see who made which or click on the image for a larger view of the beautiful examples of Asian fabrics.

If you make multiple blocks this month, you can repeat fabrics as long as you create a unique combination for each block, as you may notice Kate did for some of her blocks.

FYI, some of the many other names that have been found in publications for this block, according to according to Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns: Evening Star, Cluster of Stars, Austin, Optical Sawtooth, Sawtooth, Sawtooth Star and Nameless Star.