This is one of those unusual patterns where the main pattern (the sunburst) appears only when you sew the blocks together. Click a couple of times on the image below to enlarge it to the original size (28″ x 17″).
I love this pattern, and I think the construction is interesting, but it’s pretty tricky to join 16 seams together in a point, and for me it’s even trickier when the point is formed at the intersection of 4 blocks. Also, I’m not crazy about the edges in this layout, which have the appearance of half blocks. If I were making this quilt, I would stitch the block with the sunburst in the middle, sew the blocks together with a single row of pieced sashing to complete the nine patches, and then, on the outside edges, I would add one more row of sashing like this:
Here is a 1958 newspaper ad for this pattern. Although the mail order pattern only identifies the quilt as Design 712, the newspaper ad refers to it as a Sunburst Quilt.
UPDATE: Check out this great version of the Sunburst pattern by Chris (chrisquilts.blogspot.com.au) — she calls hers “Scrappy Windmills.” You can order Chris’s pattern from her Etsy shop Patchwork Fun.
Hi Martha. It must be the design of the moment!
Check out one of my latest patterns here
http://chrisquilts.blogspot.com.au