Nickel Quilts

I found this book at the library, its such a good way to use up scraps.... It is called Nickel Quilts by Pat Speth and Charlene Thode. They have a whole bunch of quilts to make with 5" scraps.

This quilt really caught my eye, I just love stars and this one has a bit of a twist to it. And they have an interesting way of putting together the blocks...

Here is one that I put together and by looking at it you would think that you have to sew together a whole bunch of half triangles but the directions she gives starts out with 5"blocks. I'll show you below...

for 1 star you need 2 dark squares and 2 light squares (5")

I'm sure you all know this part, just sew them together making half triangles, well then you cut them in half...

cut it 2 1/4 one way

then 2 and 1/4 the other way

so after you do that you now have all the squares needed to make your star block.

(this is from 2 dark fabric 5 " squares and 2 light fabric 5" squares)

You can also make this square using that method....

which is used in this quilt. I want to make one of these next!

I hope I didn't completely confuse you. I don't know if this method would be faster or not? but I do like that I don't have to square up a bunch of little 2 1/4 squares.