I’ve mentioned before, when start making a quilt, I have a tendency to fly by the seat of my pants. Sometimes I have a vague idea of the whole, but usually I’m just focused on the individual block.

That was the case with the star blocks for my latest nautical quilt.

I knew I wanted them to be similar to Kitten Cove (but with a slight twist). So I went ahead and cut everything for the blocks. Then I set them aside. When I got back to making them, I forgot that I had planned to make four-at-a-time HSTs, and ended up doing eight-at-a-time. This resulted in smaller blocks, but it also meant I would have enough for double the blocks.

No biggie I thought. Until I got them all done and started playing with layout. With four blocks, I would have had a 2×2 layout. But with eight, my only option was 2×4. It was too narrow, and too long.

Now I could have put vertical sashing and no horizontal sashing to widen it without adding length (like I did with Space Friends) but I just didn’t think it would look as good with this block. I started playing with other options, though they were limited, because I had a piece of fabric set aside for the backing – but I only had two yards of it. That meant I was limited on how wide I could go.

In the end, the best I could come up with was this:

But it still needed something for the centre.

Something that was NOT Burton!!!!

I toyed with a couple of ideas, and ended up using a little fabric from that backing piece (but not enough that I would not have enough for the back), and some navy stars I had set aside because I thought they’d work well as a border or binding.

As an afterthought, and so that the one different centre block wouldn’t look totally out of place, I went back and strategically snowballed some corners on the original blocks. That way when they came together at the corner stones, they’d create a little secondary pattern.

And I love the result!

Now it looks like it was all planned out that way from the very beginning! And nothing could be further from the truth!

Here’s a closer look at that backing fabric.

Little subtle grey whales! And there is enough of the navy stars for binding! I do so love it when a quilt comes together like this!