Lone Star Quilt Blocks

Well, it all started off very innocently. I was early to a meeting in the school library, so I headed for the electronic card catalogue and typed in “quilt.” I’ve been on break for three weeks, so my brain wasn’t totally in gear: I decided I’d just take a look at the easy picture books. I found this beautiful Eagle Star Quilt in the book Shota and the Star Quilt. [Authors: Christine Fowler, Margaret Bateson-Hill, Gloria Runs Close to Lodge, Philomine Lakota; Copyright: Zero to Ten Ltd 1998]

Got home, scoured my quilt book shelf, and found Easy & Elegant Lone Star Quilts by Shirley Stutz. Her stars seem to be mostly the stack-n-whack style. Beautiful! I also have the book and DVD Lone Star Quilts & Beyond by Jan Krentz. These quilts have all those rhombi (rhombuses?) and even some spikey corners. Also beautiful! An online friend recommended Eleanor Burns’ Radiant Star directions. Her booklet and DVD are available, so I’ll have to go online shopping today.

LeMoyne Star, Lone Star, Sawtooth Star – they all seem to have the same outline shape. But the innards are magnificently different.

And then comes my love of Feathered Stars. I have one in the works. I was in the quilt shop The Uncommon Thread in Fallon, Nevada last winter. Saw a beautiful feathered star sample hanging on the wall. I asked the owner if I could buy the pattern. She said she didn’t have one, but she did say it was OK for me to take a photo and try to copy it into Electric Quilt. My version will end up about 22” square. I’ve got two of the inset seams done, and I’m not brave enough yet to do the last two! And I managed to find real fabrics similar to the ones I found in EQ6.

Do I have a Lakota Star Quilt started? Only in my dreams!!

Paisleys

Isn’t this beautiful? It’s from the side of a Kleenex tissue box. I love paisleys! I have fond memories of a navy blue and maroon paisley shirt from the 70’s. I wore it with a wool skirt. On second thought, that must have been in the 60’s.

Hummm, took a close look at that tissue box. There was a website listed. And you can make your own Kleenex box! Can you imagine a Kleenex box with your own quilt on the side? Wonder if there is a way to refill the box . . . .



I’ve been collecting paisleys. How about a scrappy paisley quilt? That pink one looks more like Jacobean than paisley, doesn’t it. And I absolutely must have that brown/green paisley for the Hoffman Challenge 2009.

Only once a year?

So will I remember to update this blog only once a year? Maybe I'll try for once a week!

This is the wackiest little quiltie I have ever made! It measured out at 28" x 28" -- a size that just fits the requirements of being between 21" and 30" square. The block is Sky Rocket, a paper-pieced pattern from eQuiltPatterns.com.

So how did I happen to choose these colors? Well, I really just wanted some inexpensive fabric that I could experiment with. I truly want to use the pattern with Jackie Robinson's Fushia fabric. The fabric I really wanted was in the Ben Franklin in Sparks. I decided to try the sale table in Hancock's, the fabric shop next door.

My friend Koyya works at that Hancock's, and she provided wonderful customer service that evening! We were downright silly and chose these wacky-colored fabrics. What looks like a solid is a variegated fabric. (Not on the sale table!) I even went back another time to buy more of the stringy background fabric.

I learned something important about paper-piecing while doing these 4 blocks. I had been told not to take the paper off the back of the block until all the blocks were sewn together. Now I know why -- I had a hard time getting the points to meet at the middle of the quiltie. I think I did a great job with the points in the middle of each block though.

Now I'm off to do some more sewing. I decided to do Janet Wickell's Arizona Challenge at About.com. My version is almost finished. I'm adapting Janet's Through the Window pattern.