Davis Stars / Snowflakes

Yesterday I posted a picture that had what I am calling a "Davis Star".

There are all sorts of stars/snowflakes on the Davis quilt, usually as a seam treatment. Some are quite complex, and I wasn't really happy with my attempt yesterday, which was based on these stars:

So, I have been looking around for some geometry equipment, and happened to see DH had this in the bag with his set squares.

It is, wait for it, a template for drawing nuts and bolts in engineering. DH was an electronics engineer, but they had to do mechanical drawing as one unit at university. So do not despair if you cannot source one of these. Just raid the shed of any nearby male, and borrow a few nuts of different sizes, draw around them and make your own templates. Or buy a few from a hardware store.

For my first star, I just drew the six-sided shape on the back of the fabric, and sewed large straight stitches from the points on one side to the other, and then anchored them with a small stitch in the centre. This was the result:

I then eyeballed some straight stitches to get this:

Actually, when I think of it, I might try this stage next time as a Fly Stitch with a short leg. I then extended the lines with Fly Stitch (as did Davis on occasion) and put a single Fly Stitch in the centre of each section (which is my idea), with the "leg" of the Fly Stitch finishing in the centre:

Sure makes a lovely star/snowflake.

There are some quite complex ones on the quilt, so I will work through them slowly, and see how I go. Maybe one to a block.