Best way to make a Lone Star?

Strip piecing is the ONLY way to go! There are all kinds of lessons out there if you do a search. I have a wonderful book- "Lone Star Quilts and Beyond: Step-by-Step Projects and Inspiration" by Jan Krentz.

You can see inside the book at :

She has glorious color combinations, all kinds of suggestions for the fabrics and amazing variations on the Lone Star, . She even explains how to be absolutely certain that your pieced diamond sections are perfect so that the quilt will go together without problems. It's *well* worth the money to buy this book- you'll be so glad that you did! And it's pure eye candy to boot! NAYY

I have. I second Leslie's recommendation of Jan Krentz' book on them. Great instructions.

Was it Double, Queen, or King?

I did a wallhanging size. Big believer here in starting small and working my way up (or down to teeny)

marcella

Hi Jo. I am working on, intermittently a pieced star. The one I am working on is 6-pointed, not the 8, but similar in style. However, the original pattern sets *9* stars together and then has a bit of a pieced border. Needless to say it is a big, very big for me, quilt. I am contemplating changing the number of stars I am going to finish for this quilt and may actually get it done sometime.

As for assembly of the strip sets and such.

1. Make a diagram.
2. Sew together small bits of each fabric in the correct order. Enough so that you can see how it is supposed to go. Only need this for one set, and you will get some of this when you start cutting the sets.
3. Take your time. Don't rush things.
4. Starch your fabric before you begin.
5. Some people recommend pressing the seams open, instead of to one side. this may allow for flatter finished blocks. If you do press to one side, you may want to press each seam in the opposite direction. Be sure that they will "nest" when you line up the set strips, so that you can press each seam in the same direction around each intersection. (I actually draw arrows on a diagram. start at one seam, draw your arrows around that intersection. At the next intersection, you already have the direction of at least one seam, so keep going around that intersection, and so on. Remember this means you will have alternating clockwise and counter clockwise intersections. )

Mostly, have fun with it.

Pati, > Into every quilter's life comes the desire to make a Lone Star..

I went the QuiltSmart way with my wallhanging. It comes in two sizes... wall hanging... or bed. Really was a joy to put together. You can see it in the Kathy's Quilts album on my webshots page. I do wish I had figured differently... and put the red where the lighter color is... so the red would have made a "ring" inside the star.

You can see the Quilt Smart options here.

I also like the Broken Lone Star pattern.... may have to add it to my TODO list!

I'm adding the borders to one now. I agree with Leslie -- strip piecing is the only way to go.

Funny you should say that about the 'red ring' Kate. I just love the white forming that ring. To me it looks like snow - in just the right place!! There you go ... ... . In message , Kate G. writes

I sent this post four hours ago and it hasn't shown up, so here it is again:

Strip piecing is the ONLY way to go! There are all kinds of lessons out there if you do a search. I have a wonderful book- "Lone Star Quilts and Beyond: Step-by-Step Projects and Inspiration" by Jan Krentz.

You can see inside the book at :

She has glorious color combinations, all kinds of suggestions for the fabrics and amazing variations on the Lone Star, . She even explains how to be absolutely certain that your pieced diamond sections are perfect so that the quilt will go together without problems. It's *well*worth the money to buy this book- you'll be so glad that you did! And it's pure eye candy to boot! NAYY

Leslie & The Furbabies in MO.

I'm with Pat on this one... I like the white ring... it looks like snow at the base of all those red and green "mountains"!

-- Jo in Scotland

You have gotten most of what you asked for already. So I will confine my .02 to what I have not yet seen addressed.

Being math lazy, Lone Stars are double sized, Blazing Stars are king sized. (G) Seriously though, I just look at the pictures and figure out how big things have to be to get the size I need. The math is not that hard once you realize that the length of the side of each large diamond equals the length of the side of the squares. After that it is just logic and a^2+b^2=c^2.

Fabric estimates are a bit tough because it so depends on your layout. As a very rough estimate I would say 10 or 12 yards total for a queen or king, and 6 or 7 for a double.

If you plan well and work carefully, they go together very fast.

I checked out on sanity long ago so I can't help you there.

NightMist

I'll add my endorsement of Jan Krentz's book! She's painstaking, which is good in this situation when you're dealing with lots of bias edges -- and her painstaking method ensures a happy outcome. I've made two Lone Star quilts (neither as large as what you intend to do, Jo), which are posted here: . The second one, with Jan's techniques, was *much* easier than the first. :)

I agree with you, Pat! :)

I haven't done one, but I was wondering about doing it soonish, I just picked up an old magazine from the marked down basket at a LQS, which had quite an extensive article and from that, it seemed like the method for me would be to do offset strip sets then slice, rather than deal with diamonds at all. I don't have a scanner at home, but I suspect DH would have access to one at work, or I could photocopy it, it includes several tables for working out the size.

Cheers Anne