Miniature Lone Star

I first saw a Lone Star quilt shortly after I started quilting. I knew that it was more complex than I felt capable of at the time, having only been quilting for a few months. But I loved the design and decided then and there that I would have one for my bed. From then on, I looked at every Lone Star quilt that I saw, imagining it in my bedroom. Would those colours work? Was the size right?


Then one day I saw a variation on the pattern, that added a second round of diamonds outside the main lone star pattern. To me, this addition made the pattern even more interesting, and I was once again determined to do this. But the thought of tackling a project that large (for a king size bed) was still daunting. Then, I learned about miniature quilts. The perfect solution - I could do a smaller version of the pattern, to make sure I could do it and test out the colour scheme I wanted.

One out of 2 isn't bad - rather than my planned colour scheme (blue), I selected some green fabric from my stash and went to work. 1/2" diamonds seemed like a good choice - I figured I'd create it and figure out how big it ended up being, rather than trying to figure out how to size the lone star pattern up-front.

Working in miniature turned out to be more difficult than expected. The initial strips were easy to sew. But pieces those into the diamonds was a challenge. Nothing would stay lined up, and there wasn't enough fabric to hold onto while trying to stitch the pieces together. I ended up using freezer paper to stabilize the pieces while stitching them together. That worked like a charm, and the quilt went together smoothly after that.

The quilting on this quilt was my first attempt at free-motion quilting on my machine. The off-white blocks and border are quilted with a feather pattern, and the diamonds are all outline quilted. This quilt is about 24" square.

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