The October Island Batik Ambassador Challenge is sponsored by Accuquilt.
This year Accuquilt sent each Ambassador a North Carolina Star cutting die to use in the challenge.
This die is very large. It's a BOB or Block on Board die- meaning all the pieces you need to make the design are all on this one die.
The original North Carolina Star block has 33 blocks. There are many Y seams in the block that can be challenging- so Accuquilt decided to simplify the block by making it with no Y seams. That's great and much simpler to sew. HOWEVER - now the block has 53 pieces instead of 33! Wow- that's a lot of pieces! It also creates a challenge in pressing where many of the seams come together.
So- it's an interesting block to make. It's a very lovely block, but I personally wasn't excited about all the pieces created with the die. Our challenge also encourages us to use the die in alternate ways, so I decided to design something a bit different.
I made a table runner that is 12" x 27". It will fit great on top of a quilt display cabinet I have. I made both of the side units as shown on the diagram above. The top and bottom sections I took off the corner A piece.
Where I changed things is with the center units. I created 9 of these units, but I pieced them in a different way. I eliminated some seams in the C and E blocks and I sewed the blocks together as horizontal rows
Here is the layout of all the pieces.