Lone star block

I spent the evening playing around with a Lone Star quilt block tutorial as I'd seen a few excellent examples on Pinterest recently that sparked my quiltspiration, so I went searching for an online tutorial that could get me started in flexing my piecing skills.

It's taken all week to finally decide on the 5 fabrics I would use in the block. I thought it would be an easy pick but instead of the various shades of green I thought I'd be using I've ended up with a candy pink and blue collection. Fortunately all the fabrics were drawn from my existing stash and I didn't purchase any new fabrics. Though there were a few moments when I thought about caving and finding an open fabric store to "get something new" which has sort of confirmed a belief I've been thinking for a  while, that I've turned into the bad kind of hoarder - the kind that is always buying and never using!

So, I'm glad for that reason that I didn't buy anything new and could finally decide on a combination of dark and light and textured fabrics so that I could finally begin.

I have wanted to try this block design for a long while, probably since I first started quilting and noticing quilt patterns. It's a striking pattern that can be remarkably different with various colour and print combinations. Because I've noticed that I haven't been "using" my stash I tried to play with colours that aren't my favourite palette. I bought a lot of pink fabrics years ago for my Aunt M's Rose Quilt and I've still got an awful lot leftover because it's not a colour I enjoy.

It's also a technically challenging block using bias cut strip piecing, and requiring precision piecing with all the seams and triangles to align and match, and then finally because of the Y-seam sewing. I'm completely in the hands of online tutorials too. I've never been one for classes and workshops so the rise of online tutorials on YouTube and through Pinterest for craft is a godsend for me. I enjoy the teach myself as I go experience. Even though, at the same time, I really do wish I had a quilting buddy to work along with for these projects. I'm just never in step with anyone else.

Anyways, I had a successful evening strip sewing then cutting 45 degree angle strips to combine into diamond star points. I'm a pinner so I didn't hesitate to pin my strip seams, but I found it useful to rule and 1/4 inch line on the strips to help guide my seam matching after a few mis-alignments that ended with a destroyed set of strips. Good thing there was extra leftover from the strip sets to cut replacements! It's always better to have more than enough for those just in case moments.