I am in a swap through the quilting.about.com forum using Civil War reproductions fabrics. We are all to choose a up to 4 blocks to make 10 of each to exchange. I chose to do Papa's Stars without realizing how difficult these could prove to be. I sat down to paper piece the small 2" center star and pentagon for my test block. What a disaster! Nothing lined up. Even after I had re-sewn the seams correctly. Well I withdrew that particular block from the swap. I knew that they only way I was going to get it done was to us every spare moment at home using English paper piecing method and hand sewing all the centers. Of course the English paper piecing templates had to be made out of freezer paper because the itty bitty pieces were so difficult to mess with. In order to prove to myself that I could actually do this and be successful at it, I spent most of last night working on this. At one point, my husband came in to the room and asked me what the hell I was going to do with such small pieces of paper. "Work on a quilt block of course!" He just shook his head and left the room saying, "Have fun! Let me know when I can come to bed." Anyway, I had success in my venture. I included pictures below of my first attempt compared to my second attempt. Needless to say I was happy that I was able to complete this task as well as I did. The only way I could possibly do this block for a swap would be to do the center star as a fusible appliqué instead of pieced. Now I just have to tackle this in the original DJ size of 4 1/2 inches. Not 9 inches finished. Click the thumbnails below to get close-ups. :)  
 
 
 
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