What a BIG Lone Star!

I guess I got carried away. I made not one, not two, not three, but FOUR very large Lone Star blocks. They measure 29" square! That was a lot of cutting and piecing! Then I had to decide how to arrange them. These use the current Meadow Collection by Windham Fabrics.

Four traditional Lone Star block parts

Do you remember the fabrics?

Meadow Collection 2022 by Windham Fabrics

For the process, there were NO templates. I cut strips . . .

Two fabrics for making one star (plus background solid)

This is what the star parts look like. Sure looks like I'm going to have to do some set in seams. Not gonna happen!

Eight four-patch 45 degree diamonds

The strips are cut using a standard acrylic ruler with those 45 degree diagonal lines. You can see it running along the top of the pink fabric, right under my name.

Then the key to piecing these ACCURATELY is to mark the 1/4" seams on one two-patch as shown below. This makes sure that the little triangle tips (shown on left) are in the right spot and that the center (where the patches come together) are aligned - that pin runs through to the seam on the patch set below. My students LOVE this tip! Seam is pressed open.

Marking and pinning for a perfect 4 Patch Diamond

Here are the four parts to a single Lone Star. Yes, you can see that I have split the outside squares and side triangles so that there are no y-seams. Easy!

Single Lone Star parts

But, what if I turn one of the quarters 180 degrees? "Why?" you may ask.

Because I wanted to do it with the other 3 stars, which creates the illusion of another 5th star in the center. And that's exactly what I've done. Here she is in process.  Just a few more seams and she'll be a LARGE quilt top (68" x 68").

When 4 Becomes 5 Lone Star

I hope to stitch it together later this week. You can see some of my Big Block Lone Star patterns in my Etsy shop.