Lone Star Class

This past Saturday I took a quilt class at the local quilt store.  First one in many years. 

The class is for a Lone star quilt made of 3.5" strips, sewn together then cut into diamond sets.  So, thought I would post about it.

These are the fabrics I finally decided on.  It took me quite a while to get to these.  I only changed my mind about 4 times, buying a little fabric each time.  The large print floral is fabric left over from making window treatments for my living/dining room and kitchen window.  Funny how "window treatment" sounds so much more refined than curtains.

So then, the strips were sewn together into 3 combinations and then those strip combos are cut in to sections at a 45 degree angle.  The burgundy is the outside point.  We will NOT talk about how I had to play frog with the first set of strips I put together because they were totally out of order.  You can't even flip these and salvage the sewing because of the off set of each strip. And, will NOT talk about the lesson I had to learn about matching up seams that are on an angle. I know it sounds complicated, which it is not, just have to pay close attention to your pattern directions, which in my opinion could be a bit more explanatory in some areas.  Just saying.  According to the pattern, I should have gotten 8 sections from each strip set...I only got 7 (most of the class only got 7) so have to make one more strip set for each fabric combination.  I have however figured out a way to do a little more sewing, but use less fabric.  I know I am all about using up my stash, but there isn't much of these fabrics so don't want to waste three strips of fabric when I can use that fabric for something else, if it is left in larger pieces.

Those are then sewn in to diamond sections.  A total of 8 of these diamond sections are needed to make the quilt.

I haven't sewn them together yet, but this is how they will look with the triangle insets of large floral print.  If you can't already tell, this will not be a square quilt.  It will be hexagon shaped or what ever it is called when you have 8 sides.  For this pattern, if you want to make it square, then you replace four triangles with squares. 

Cool thing is, since I haven't sewn them together yet, I can reverse them and put the burgundy as the center points and the cream on the out side.  At the moment, I think I like the burgundy as the outside points.

I had made a deal with my daughter-in-law a while back to trade living room furniture.  I FINALLY have a comfortable chair for myself now.  When I can get my youngest daughter out of it.   At any rate, I had planned on making this quilt to lay across the back of the couch, that is why I used the fabric from the curtains.  I had a high backed sectional, took up the whole room.  We traded out the furniture today, so now I have a nice couch and oversized chair with an ottoman.  HOWEVER, I did not realize that the sofa set has a much lower back and that a series of pillows makes the back of the sofa.  It is not going to work for me to lay a quilt across it.  I will figure out something though.  The quilt is 44 x 44 inches.

The main thing is that I learned some new things, finally have made a Lone Star quilt and I had a lot of fun.  We also were given a pattern for a much larger Lone Star quilt using 2.5" strips.  About twice the size.  I am thinking about making it, but have found a kit very similar and I really love the fabrics in that kit.  I normally don't spend the kind of money a kit goes for, but this may just be the exception.  I will however think about it a while longer.  Who knows, maybe it will go on sale.

Speaking of sales, of course the shop was having a heck of a sale.  They had a lot of clearance they were trying to get rid of.  I helped them out with that, brought a lot home.  For the first time, I did purchase a couple of kits.  Both were reduced to the point that I could not buy the fabric for the price, not to mention it comes with the pattern.  Both are smaller throw size or child size and I will use them for gifts or raffle donations.  Some of the fabric was marked down to $2.20 a yard...how could I pass that up?

Almost forgot, I promised to post a photo of the quilt top I made recently for the orphanage quilt project our church quilt ministry has taken on.

As I said, very simple.  Will post a photo of the finished quilt when it is done.  The plan is to sew a back and batting on, kind of pillow case style, so there will be no binding.  Then, there will be a work day set for every one to come tie the quilts, so will be quilted with knots of thread.  I found out that I was given the wrong info and need to removed a row of squares.  Which is okay because that really isn't much work.  Just glad I found out before I made a bunch more.

That's all for now, have been moving furniture all day and now am ready to sew a while and work on finishing up this Lone Star project.