messing with Jane Austen

Sometimes I swear I have the attention span of a flea.  *Usually* I can be very focused and successfully concentration on a project until its completion.  This is advantageous when you are working on a project that is going to take a long time ... like the Jane Austen quilt.

But, as I work on a project, there are times when my mind wanders to other things that could be done with the very pieces I am currently working with.  aaiiiieee!  That way lies madness!  I start thinking about other projects to do and other layouts and then, before you know it, I find myself absolutely, positively NEEDING to do "that thing" just to get it out of my mind!

Take for instance ... the Jane Austen diamond.  Looks pretty good, huh?  When pieced with it's sashing and combined with all the other Jane Austen diamonds, it's going to look doggone fantastic.  I had cut a *boatload* of diamonds in preparation for the Jane Austen quilt ... not knowing precisely how many I'd eventually need.  As it turned out, I cut quite a bit more than I need.  :-)

So, what do do with the leftover diamonds?  Well, a star immediately comes to mind!  A most excellent idea!  I like making stars .. they look so good.  And if I do say so myself, the centers of my stars are absolutely, positively flat-flat-flat.  No volcanos or D-cup mountains for my stars!

I dry-fitted my Jane Austen diamonds together and immediately realized .. Houston, we have a problem.  See, the Jane Austen diamonds aren't a 45° or even a 60° diamond.  They are some weird angle.  And they just DO. NOT. FIT. TOGETHER. in a star.







Fortunately, I happen to have a 60° template that was given to me by a quilting buddy.  I re-cut the Jane Austen diamonds using the template and proceeded to make some stars.

Don't they look purdy?  :-)

I have no idea what I'm going to do with them.  But, at least for now, that particular bug about 'doing something else' with the left over Jane Austen diamonds has been dealt with.

And yes .. the center of my stars are flat-flat-flat.  :-)