Star Quilt from Alabama

Donna Pyle had a pattern question.

She's been restoring this quilt from Alabama.

"I've just been given several quilts from a family I did a restoration for last year and one of the quilts is quite remarkable. I've made an exhaustive search of your Encyclopedia and haven't found a block like it. "

"The quilt was made in Alabama by the current owner's great grandmother who was born in 1848. She said that her great-grandfather may have taken it off to war with him during the Civil War. The quilt is in remarkable shape, but it was so dirty that it looked overall like a dark brown quilt. I've spent considerable time cleaning the quilt and am flabbergasted at the large number of beautiful fabrics in it."  

 The fabrics do look Civil-War-era. Lots of madders and some Prussian blue and buff prints.

It's more difficult to figure out the repeat.

But I tried drawing it in EQ7 and this is how I'd construct it.

A star with a star in the center and star points in the corners.

It's not in my Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns or BlockBase. The closest I can come is BlockBase #3592 "Star of Texas," printed in the Ladies' Home Journal in 1912.

I imported it into Electric Quilt 7 and recolored it in my Baltimore Blues line.

If you go to the Moda page called Future Groups this week you'll see a preview of the fall fabric collection.

http://storefront.unitednotions.com/storefrontCommerce/subcategorybrowse.do?subcategory-name=Future+Groups&path=Guest%2f%2f%2f%2fFabrics&currentPage=1&numResults=100#

BlockBase #3592 "Star of Texas"

It's the same sort of star with an octagon in the center.

The Alabama quilt is a lot more complicated: A star in the center with the same sized star in the corners. I couldn't get it drawn right. At least to the correct proportions.

But here's how my drawing would repeat.

A very interesting quilt.

"Unknown Star from Alabama."

UPDATE:

Jeanneke from the Netherlands drew a pattern in Illustrator.

See Jeanneke's pattern with pdfs here:

http://www.jeanneke.com/#post172

I blew her drawing up to an 8" block and added one seam line (piece E) so it's a square block instead of an all over mosaic.

Print the jpg below out. I drew it to be 7-7/8" so it will fit on an 8-1/2" wide sheet of paper.

No rotary cutting instructions---

Templates.

ADD SEAMS!

Here's the printing calculator to tell you that

if you want an approximately 12" block you need to adjust your printer to print the picture 152%.

It's a collaboration.

For people who are working with different measurement systems, different size paper and different time zones, we are doing pretty good.

I'd paper piece this one just like Becky's been doing the Morris hexathons.

Thanks for the pictures, Donna.

And for the suggestions in the comments.

More ideas?