Diamonds Are Forever

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2023 with quilts and all their beauty.

Diamonds come in all sizes. Those in fabric come in many different angles. I seem to prefer the 60 degree kind, though I've made many quilts using the 45 degree diamond. Oh - don't get nervous. I'm not going to launch into a math lesson!

This is a simple quilt made using eight large 45 degree diamonds.

Big Block Lone Star. 29" center star! 6-1/2" diamonds

I have shown how I cut my fabric diamonds, both 45 and 60 degree. What's revolutionary to me is that I do not use templates. Revolutionary? Yes, because when I began quilting 35 years ago, every diamond in every magazine was cut using a template. Every. Single. One.

Here is how I cut my strips - NO templates! For this next quilt I began with 3-1/2" strips. Using the 45 degree diagonal lines on my acrylic ruler, I sliced off the left side (waste) by aligning the 45 degree line with bottom of strip. Then I measured over 3-1/2" from that cut and made a second cut. A perfect 45 degree diamond!

Cutting a 45 degree diamond

I cut a lot of diamonds. Two different pinks and white background will make one star. Again, no templates.

Pink diamonds ready for making a Lone Star

Here is my first star. No set-in seams, either! Eight 45 degree diamonds = 360 degrees. Isn't math beautiful?

Big Block Lone Star - single block

Here are a lot of 45 degree diamonds that I cut for my Flying Swallows class. These are smaller, cut from 2-1/2" strips.

45 degree diamonds cut from 2-1/2" strips

This is the 3rd Flying Swallows quilt I've made and I think it's now my favorite. It uses 24 of those diamonds, 6 of each color. 

Flying Swallows quilt: 24" center block; 38" x 38" quilt

Here is a Flying Swallows quilt using larger diamonds. Same cutting technique. There are only two colors of diamonds.

Flying Swallows in traditional colors

And the very first Flying Swallows quilt I made about 25 years ago. I chose bold colors for the center with only one color for the diamonds.

My first Flying Swallows quilt

I have many Lone Star quilts and their variations. The Flying Swallows quilt uses the same shape/size 45 degree diamond, and look how different they look! I did an entire week featuring Lone Stars in June of 2020. Do a search here on my blog and you will see SO many beautiful quilts and their variations!

I'll be back with more diamonds in quilts later this week!