July 7, 2013

Sneak Peek: Lone Star Quilts

A little while back a friend from college, Marcy, asked if I would be interested in making a Lone Star quilt for her.  She was inspired by a partial Lone Star wall hanging she saw on Pinterest, which came from this post at Better Off Thread.

She wanted it king size, so after I recovered from my panic we agreed that I would piece the top and then it would be sent to a longarm quilter for quilting.  My little Janome just can't handle a quilt that size, and I didn't want the pressure of perfect quilting in all that negative space.  Marcy and I worked out some details, and she went shopping for fabric at High Prairie Quilts in Parker, CO.  This is what came in the mail a short time later, along with a cream and gold map print for the backing:


Cutting into all these fabrics made me nervous, so I decided to do a practice run with my own fabrics first.  I was most concerned with the proper width of the strips and the overall finished size of the star.  Thankfully I have an old quilting book with a Lone Star pattern in it that includes a king size option, so I wasn't totally without instructions or guidance.  But still, I wanted to practice first.  Here's what I came up with:

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With strips cut at 3.5", the star came out bigger than I wanted -- and that's why I'm glad I practiced first.  Plus, some day I'll finish this up and keep it for myself.  I love the fabric combo.

Back to Marcy's quilt -- I cut strips 3" wide, pieced them together in sets of 6, and then cut them on a 45-degree angle to form the large points of the star.


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The star is 79" tall and I expect it to be around 42" wide, with a straight edge on the left where it's only partially pieced.  The negative space will be filled with dark red solid, which I have to tackle next.

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