Princess or Prince's Feathers, Whatever

These bold blocks are always intriguing.

There are so many variations.

It's wonderful to see so much individuality within a set of visual rules.

 

The rules are pretty simple: The arms have to rotate around a center.

There's a lot of variation possible in the center

 Each of the arms goes the same way, no flipping the pattern over.

In the example above the arms in the corners flip.

See why you can't flip the arms in a quilt from the McCord Museum by clicking here:

 http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/collection/artifacts/M971.110    

There can be eight arms rotating.

(See more about this quilt and the pattern at Karen Alexander's post

http://karenquilt.blogspot.com/2010/12/red-and-green-part-1.html )

Minor rules: Serated edges on the arms or not

Six arms rotating.

Another rule: You can add stuff to the arms.

Flowers

Four arms with a star hanging off.

But one arm is too few.

Do you get the feeling someone inherited some pieces here without a clear view of the overall blueprint for the project?

See one on the Quilt Index that illustrates why the basic rule is rotate---no flipping.

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4A-7F-98D