Many of you are busy (like me) cooking, baking, working and trying to keep everything together - preparing for tomorrow's holiday (Thanksgiving here in the USA). But there's always time for FABRIC, right? I received a Windham Fabrics collection called
Carmen and immediately thought of my "go-to" Lone Star blocks. This pattern appears in my second book Supersize 'Em Quilts.
Can I show you these yummy fabrics? While I'm not naturally drawn to browns, it's the deep browns and reds and awesome prints that remind me of chocolate. Can you say Godiva? I have a little catalog here and the front cover is all the same colors as the
Carmen Collection! See what you think.
Aren't these all so yummy?
And now for the Lone Stars. No real pattern, but I think you can figure this out from my cutting sizes. The stars finish at about 19". I hope to put these blocks into a quilt asap. Four blocks make for a 38" quilt center. Add sashings and it's even bigger. And then borders . . .
Begin with a 4-1/2" x wof strip. Align the 45 degree ruler line with the bottom of strip. Slice off end.
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Cut 4-1/2" strips; slice off one end at 45 degree angle. I used the 45 degreee line on the ruler |
Now cut 4-1/2" wedges. I only need four of these for my first block.
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Cut 4-1/2" segments across the width of my strip |
Now cut two strips 2-1/2" x wof. Seam together. Slice on left side as we did above. Cut wedges 2-1/2" wide. You need 8 wedges. We will sew two of these into a four-patch diamond.
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Strip pieced units sliced again at a 45 degree angle |
Very important to put the colors as you see here if you want the red to be in the outside points.
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Join together. Notice the the red diamonds are on both pointed ends |
Now it's time for the background fabrics. There are two sizes of triangles: small and large. The small triangles are cut from a 4-7/8" square. The large triangles are cut from a 6-3/4" square. You will need a total of four 4-7/8" squares (for 8 triangles) and four 6-3/4" squares (for 8 triangles).
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Notice how the triangles are added. Sew the small triangles on FIRST. |
After the light background triangles are sewn onto each diamond, the four-patch unit comes around and is joined to the dark diamond so that you are making a quarter block (rather than a giant triangle). Make four of these. Because I cut the background triangles oversized, you may need to shave a little off - using the diamonds as your guide. Also, an accurate 1/4" seam is a MUST!
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Make four of these units |
And here's my first block:
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Lone Star Block #1 |
And Block #2 uses two different colors for the large diamonds, 4 diamonds of each color:
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Lone Star Block #2 |
And Block #3 is made of eight sets of the 4-patch diamonds. Make sure all your points have the same color (mine is the black print). This gives the illusion of a star within a star. Neat, huh?
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Lone Star Block #3 |
And Block #4:
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Lone Star Block #4 |
For Blocks 2 & 4, a single 4-1/2" strip of each color is enough fabric. For the block #3, you will need two 2-1/2" strips of each color to get the cuts you need. And for Block #1, a single 4-1/2 strip is enough for the large diamonds and a single strip of each of the two colors for the 2-1/2" patches is enough.
You can get enough 6-3/4" squares from one strip; you can get two sets of 4-7/8" squares (for two blocks) from one strip. Go scrappy!
Here are two previous posts that demonstrate cutting Lone Stars from strips:
I hope you've enjoyed seeing how easy it is to rotary cut a Lone Star. And such big blocks, too!