Wishing Star in BlockBase+

 

Top last quarter 20th century

Online auction

 Practicing using my new BlockBase+ program I thought I'd see what I could find about this pattern.

Here it is on a page of Eight Pointed Stars: Other Stars on the top row. These are rather miscellaneous stars that look complicated to piece. But stitchers stitched them.

Recently quilted top, originally pieced probably 1940-1960.

I could have searched for it by number 3883 as I knew the number after looking through my Encyclopedia book. It has three published names:
New Star quilt & Wishing Star from Workbasket magazine
& Star of St. Louis from Nancy Cabot.

I have several examples in the picture files

Solid colors harder to date than prints but that pastel green (Nile Green)

looks 1930-1950.

So-- I am looking at these examples and I note that three of my four vintage are not really pieced into blocks.

Late 20th century

The block---white here---is plain. The piecing is in the sashing.

A way to make a star block that is old-fashion and complicated.

This is easier.

I went back to the source Workbasket magazine. And found it in the AntiqueQuiltPatternLibrary's index to Workbasket patterns as Wishing Star
https://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org/html/warm/wbquilt.htm

Published November, 1940, which is a help in dating the quilts above. Workbasket tells you to piece it with plain white blocks (notice piece A & E above.) 

That little magazine was a very popular source for needleworkers in the mid-20th-century: Cheap and offering some innovative ideas.

But I wouldn't follow their advice on piecing this block.

I would use the "Print" button in BlockBase+. First I'd see what

could be rotary cut---triangles & squares along the outside edge.

And then I'd "Print" a pattern by printing a large picture of the block. I chose 10" for the size because that's often the biggest block I can fit on one sheet of paper. I printed the block that size and previewed it. It took up more than one sheet but since the pieces repeat one sheet can give you enough information to make the block.

I saved the first block picture page into Photoshop

and added extra information.

And there you have a 10" pattern for a Wishing Star.

Speaking of Wishing I wish I could have found the source for Star of St. Louis from the Chicago Tribune's Nancy Cabot column but I did not. Some of those Nancy Cabot attributions were taken from other historians' indexes of the 1960s and those were not as accurate as I'd hope.