Paper Piecing

I'm still trying to decide what block to do for the 3x6 bee.  I'm in a star mood, what with the wonky stars I'm doing for the 4x5 bee.  I've seen some paper pieced stars recently and I picked the Star from the Summer Sampler Series to try.  I've never done any paper piecing before, so I knew I definitely had to do a test block before committing to make 6 for the other bee members.

Faith from Fresh Lemons wrote a great tutorial for this block.  The template printed out in the correct size and the directions were very clear, for someone who had never done paper piecing.  My block turned out quite well, but I don't think I'm up to make 6 more.  I don't think I've ever ripped so many seams in one 12 inch block and when you are talking about 1.5 length stitches the frustration factor is magnified.  The other problem is that 2 members of my hive have monochromatic color schemes.  This feels like at least a  3 color block.

I think my color choices were spot on.  Blue is the dominant color and everything pops against the dark brown ground.  I'll definitely use the block in my quilt, but I'm still on the hunt for a block for the bee.