something new on the design wall

 Last week I was looking at some possibilities for the next quilt and thought maybe I would do the pine burr which is a long triangle with half square triangles coming up the sides and a diamond at the point, the base of the pine cones / triangles are set on a square or a square with sides that curve in, very attractive in green and red with a cream background.  The pattern I had was in a magazine from 1999.  I started cutting some greens then decided to do a trial block in scrap fabrics and I'm so glad I tried one before cutting 20 different greens for the pine burrs.  The magazine instructions were minimal, I cut templates and used all my tools and sewed very accurate quarter inch seams then sewed the HSTs to the big triangle then trimmed the curve to sew to the center and nothing fit right so I measured the templates and the math didn't come out right.  I would need to sew a very generous quarter inch seam to make the HSTs fit the long triangle and even then the template was cutting off the bottom pair of HSTs.  I don't like it when the points of triangles are missing!  The magazine is back on the self along with the templates I may try again someday.
I flipped through my favorite books looking for ideas then I was wishing I hadn't tossed so many magazines the last couple moves but I remembered as I purged magazines years ago that I ripped out pages and filed them.  Happy day! to look through all those patterns!!  I found a Kim Diehl pattern with nine patches and courthouse steps or log cabins and set aside a couple other patterns that use the same width of strips because you know I will cut too many.  --Ann--
P.S.  These fabrics were all in my stash.  And linking to Em's Moving it Forward