Seven Sisters - Seven Stars

This week's block on Barbara Brackman's Civil War sampler is an applique 7-sisters.
I don't do star applique, end of story :-)

I do, however, do hexagons and 60-degree diamonds, so ... I've taken the other option, and am doing a hexagon-transformed-into-a square version.

There will be borders all the way round, because 6" (or, indeed 8") square for this block calls for some weird size in hexagons, and I'm not going there :-)

If you want to keep it a hexagon, it will have a 3" finished side.
Another option is to use only the 0.5" diamond collection, follow Linda's directions in that collection for making a Seven Sisters block, and then log-cabin it until it has the right size :-)

(I've edited this following paragraph, because there is no need for anyone to mess around if they don't want to)
If you want to have a block closer to the 8" square in size that Brackman uses on her blog, you can use 0.75" shapes (Collection 3), and then head over her, to Cathi's blog, where she has a lovely, and very easy to follow tutorial on how to make the 'other version' of the Seven Sisters block.

Cathi's blog here.

If you want it square : Add corners (as shown in this post, and in the 0.5" diamond collection), and then ... log-cabin it until it has the right size. Remember that an 6" (finished) block, is actually 6.5" unfinished.

There are two (main) variants on the Seven Sister's block, the one I'm showing you here is also called Seven Stars. Brackmann doesn't show it in her Encyclopedia, but it is found with Jinny Beyer # 395-1

Printing-table here.

Background
0.5 x 1" half elongated hexagons, 12
0.5" hexagon, 12

Focus-fabric
0.5" diamond, 42


Making the block :

Make 7 stars (see how to make a 6-pointed star, here).

Take one star, and add 6 hexagons to it between the points. If you are hand-piecing, this can be done with one, continuous thread. (Continuous stitching)

Add the 6 stars around the circle of hexagons; again, you can use one, continuous thread to do that.

Add another set of hexagons between the circle of stars (you can't do continuous stitching any more here)

Join the half, elongated hexagons two and two on the short sides so they form a (fairly) open angle.
Add them between the star-points, over the hexagons.

Finished !