Lone Star

Oooh! October already! I’ve been busy this week getting my materials ready for the Lone Star class I’m taking next week at the AQS quilt show in Des Moines. Last Saturday I bought the large-format (8 x 10 inches) hinged mirrors that are required, and I played with them for hours. What a lot of fun! I designed one-eighth of my Lone Star quilt in miniature, below.

Then I used the mirrors to see how the entire Lone Star will look when it is finished, below. Obviously, the flowers will be whole, but you can get a good idea of how the colors in the star will radiate out from the center. The large flower print, which you cannot get a good look at in this miniature format, has yellow, green, red and blue in it, which is why my Lone Star features those colors. I plan to fussy-cut the large flower squares to emphasize the green, yellow and blue.

Finally, I used the mirrors on the fabric to pick out a motif for the center of the star, and I fussy-cut the eight diamonds. Here is what I came up with:

I hope to get further advice on the border design from the Lone Star class teacher, Jan Krentz, next week. I bought her book, Lone Star Quilts and Beyond, and I’m so excited to try out her techniques. All my fabric strips are cut and ready to go to Des Moines. I've never made a Lone Star before, and I can't think of a quilt I've made that uses the diamond shape. So this will be something new for me.