quilt design for maths tragics

A design dilemma has been plaguing me for some time now....I thought my problem was how to turn a hexagon into a square. For maths tragics like me it's a difficulty both in design and geometry.

Some years ago I purchased a quilt top that had potential. It was a six-pointed, very scrappy Lone Star with 4 mini-lone-star satellites. The stars were made of 1880-1900's scraps, but they had been set in a quite horrible purpley-mauve background and the arrangement wasn't working for me. Thankfully the mauve was faded and shredding and I felt no remorse unpicking the stitches to free the stars.

Lone Star quilts with a myriad of satellite stars have long whispered to me, so my mind started heading towards making more little stars to twinkle around "big momma" star. Then I discovered something - did you know six point stars behave quite differently to 8 point stars? The 60 degree angles of 6-point stars are less attractive to me somehow than the familiar 90 degree angles of 8-point stars.

my inspiration....
image scanned from "The Quilt Engagement Calendar Treasury" by Cyril Nelson and Carter Houck

More stars were sewn, but nothing seemed right. I reached the point as photographed below and was not happy, so everything was folded up and put away more than 12 months ago, to revisit another time.

my work so far.... original pieces are the large star + 4 smaller stars, I have made 8 extra stars

Today, while flipping through some old Quilt Engagement Calendars, I came across a wonderful quirky 1900's Star of Bethlehem Quilt with a bold pieced background.

image scanned from 1982 Quilt Engagement Calendar

I knew it was right for my stars, immediately realising that my REAL problem had not been geometry based but design based - I had been trying to impose control over my "unruly child", when really I should have been finding a way to set my stars free.

My task for this weekend is to unpick my sewing to date, to piece a variety of shirtings for the background setting pieces and to start appliqueing the mini-Lone-stars in place, and perhaps to make a start on some tiny little itty bitty stars just for good measure...my mantra - more whimsy, less control freak.

Don't you just LOVE Eureka moments!