I learned a lot, however, about precision piecing, and this is No. 1: Make SURE you are sewing a SCANT quarter-inch seam! I had a lot of trouble piecing on the machines provided in the class—very nice machines, but not my trusty old Bernina. Jan Krentz was a great teacher, and although I read her book Lone Star Quilts and Beyond before the class, she had extra tips to give us that were not in the book. And since the lone star is not an easy pattern, I think taking the class gave me enough courage to tackle it. I spent two full days in my sewing studio when I got home and finished my star and the setting blocks, below.
Originally I planned to feature blue flowers centered in 4 setting squares, and red flowers centered in the other 4. But the flowers are not quite large enough to do that—I got red and blue in every square. So I fussy-cut all the squares exactly alike to maximize the use of blue and yellow—and pretty much destroyed 3 yards of fabric in the process. (Oh well—that’s what it’s for.) I like the way it turned out. I think the setting squares kind of create a wreath of flowers around the star.
The next step is to make the trapezoid border pieces, but I want to add a narrow blue band of color all around the setting squares. This is going to be a bit complicated!
AND--Quilt Stories was named "Blog of the Week" last Friday on the AQS Facebook page. Hurray! Thanks for reading.
AND--Quilt Stories was named "Blog of the Week" last Friday on the AQS Facebook page. Hurray! Thanks for reading.
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