Paisley Lone Star

On Jan. 15, I posted a picture of some fabric I bought at The Quilted Fox in St. Louis for my guild’s winter challenge. I had to use the paisley fabric provided by the challenge, plus I added 3 more paisley prints and some blues, greens and yellows for a Paisley Lone Star. I worked on this quilt while I was taking care of my daughter in Tennessee and off and on during her most recent hospitalization. Even so, I was under pressure to finish it in time for the guild meeting Thursday night.

The challenge fabric is in the center. I only had two fat quarters—not enough to make all eight pieces match because the print had a big repeat. So I alternated a paisley and a feather. I sewed this center FIVE times before I got the seams to line up. Each time I ripped, I knew that the pieces were getting even more distorted. I kept thinking, What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I get this right? But then I remembered that these center pieces were all fussy-cut, and not one of them was on the grain. I gave myself a break and managed to wrangle them in there.

Here is a detail from the setting squares. I decided to machine applique some paisley shapes, and added a flower and leaves. Those “ribbons” are ¼” strips. The dark green strip was cut straight and the yellow and white strips are curved. Overall, it gives the effect of a wreath of ribbons around the star. I tried a new product to make these applique shapes—Heat ‘n’ Bond Lite. It worked very well—really flexible.

I auditioned fabrics for the border and decided on this blue and green paisley, a fabric so beautiful that I just wanted to leave it alone and look at it. But something still seemed to be missing, so I decided to add a ¼” strip of dark green around the star. That really set it off. I had to make another trip to The Quilted Fox to get enough fabric to finish the border, but I was in St. Louis anyway when my daughter was in the hospital. Here is the finished quilt (50” x 50”):

The effort was worth it, because my Paisley Lone Star won first place in the challenge! It was a very good quilting week for Feltsey! The challenge quilts will be on display at the Rolla Public Library in March and at Uniquely Yours, a local quilt shop, in April.

Thanks to Jan P. Krentz, author of Lone Star Quilts & Beyond. I took a terrific class from Jan last fall in Des Moines. I highly recommend her book if you want to make a Lone Star. Her website is http://www.jankrentz.com/.