First Friday Freebie

Kaaren, at The Painted Quilt, is offering to share some fabulous new designs, with a new pattern appearing the first Friday of each month. I've added a button to my sidebar to remind us. You'll enjoy visiting her blog the rest of the month as well!

New Mystery

My friend, Cynthia, at Iowa Star Quilts has a new free mystery quilt. It has three segments and will be offered on her website over the next three months. This month's block is called Fractured Star and I just made a block (I get to test her directions..how lucky is that?).

This is really a fun block to make and Cynthia shows a unique way of piecing it. I don't know that I'll get all 20 of these blocks made before she posts the next step given all the other irons I have in the fire, but I hope to make some now and then. They really go together fast.

I'll be using a bigger variety of background fabrics in the future. I was in a hurry today and grabbed some squares I already had cut. I'll also use a bit more care in joining the sections as I missed in a place or two. The block did come out to the perfect 9 1/2" though. I just lopped off some points when I cropped the photo since it wasn't taken straight on.

Hop on over there and give it a try. Cynthia's scrap quilts are always fun.