A New Year - Scrappy Star

I haven't been too productive this past week as we took a trip to Winnipeg to see family over the New Year.   Now we are back and all have colds so my energy level is pretty low.   So I am really glad I did my first quilt of the new year in December before we left.   This quilt is the same pattern as the scrappy star quilts I made for my boys expect for one change.  My client doesn't have the half stars on the outside edge so only has full stars in the light fabric and it looks really nice.

She asked Lori to dye the backing for her and picked a medium toned green to go with the bright batik fabrics.  The pantograph is Whirlygig and I used a soft green So Fine thread.

Since I lack the energy to quilt I started playing with my Go cutter yesterday.  I tried the 2 1/2" strip cutter to cut binding strips for some placemats I had made and with one pass through the machine I had 9 straight binding strips cut!!!  I was impressed. This machine does take a bit of muscle to crank all the layer of fabric and the padding on the die through the machine but that doesn't bother me.

Today I am going to try the 8 1/2" Rag Square die.  This die if for making Ragtime quilts and cuts the fringed edges for you so I can see this one being a huge time saver for this project.  Just don't know if the fringed edges will be a nuasance when sewing the blocks together. I"ll keep you posted on this project.