Happy Holidays! This month’s blog hop is called Lone Star as the Island Batik Ambassadors will all be making a lone star quilt using different fabric collections from Island Batik. I love the look of Lone Star quilts and I know you are going to see some awesome quilts with this month’s Island Batik blog hop. Since this month is a blog hop, you can check out the Island Batik blog and enter each week to win a fat quarter bundle of some of the fabrics that the Ambassadors are using in their projects. I will show the other fabric collections later in this blog along with a link to the giveaway from Island Batik and links to other ambassador’s blogs.
I have always liked lone star quilts and yet I have never made one. A very special lone star quilt that I saw in South Dakota is part of the Dignity Statue. This statue is massive. The Dignity Statue is a tribute to the Lakota people of South Dakota. The image of the star quilt is a reminder of the importance of generosity in Lakota culture and is one of the most valued gifts one can receive. Also, if you are looking for some additional inspiration for Lone Star quilts, there are a lot of them featured in the 24th issue of Quiltfolk, which is about South Dakota quilters.
The December project was to make a lone star quilt using an upcoming fabric line from Island Batik. I love the fabric I was given to use: Copperfield by Claudia Pfeil. Just look at this gorgeous collection of batik fabrics. The Copperfield collection may be found at your local quilt shop that carries Island Batik, such as Fabric Smart in St. Petersburg FL. You may find them online at www.fabric-smart.com or call them at 727-914-8850.
The quilt I made is called Reach For the Stars. It is a large lap sized quilt- 58″ x 58.” This striking quilt has shades of orange and shades of green on a white background. It’s a more modern lone star in that it has numerous white diamonds that create an open, lacy look to the main star. I live near Central Park- no, not that Central Park, and every year the whole park is lit up with holiday lights and they have a carnival with amusement rides. It was the perfect location to take pictures of this quilt.
Here is a closeup of the Copperfield batik bundle I was provided. What a beautiful selection of orange and green batiks.
These are the fabrics I chose from the collection to incorporate into my quilt along with white background fabric.
I used my Electric Quilt 8 software to design this quilt. This is what the quilt looked like in the software. This combination of fabrics, with this layout, causes the main star in the quilt to radiate outwards. I think it has this effect even more so in the actual quilt.
Now that I had the fabrics and the design, I had to figure out how I was going to make this quilt as I had never made a lone star quilt before. Thanks to my good friend, Eleanor Burns of Quilt in a Day, and her book, Radiant Star Quilts, I knew that I would be able to successfully make this quilt.
You probably know that Eleanor is a stripper and one method for making a lone star quilt involves sewing strips together. The other method is to sew lots of diamonds together. I wanted to use the strip method in the Quilt in a Day book. You need a lot of strips, so I got out my Creative Grids Stripology Ruler and quickly cut out all the strips I needed to make this quilt.
In the next step, the strips have to be sewn together in a certain order to create the diamond points of the main star. Each subsequent strip is offset downward, which creates a 45 degree angle at the end of the strip set. When sewing multiple long strips together, it is a good idea to reverse directions when sewing the subsequent strips on; i.e., start at the bottom instead of the top on every other strip. This helps to prevent bowing in your strip sets.
To create the diamonds, the strip sets are then cut at an angle. This creates biased edges on the newly cut strips and you have to be careful to not stretch them when pressing and/or sewing. You trim the end at a 45 degree angle and then make subsequent cuts that are the same size as your original strips, which in my case was 2.5.”
There were three or four different combinations of strip sets that had to be sewn together and then cut at an angle. You then have to match up the correct angled strips next to each other and sew them together. This requires a lot of organization so that you have sewn the correct strip sets together and then are sewing the correct angled strips together. The Quilt in a Day book was well written and following the detailed instructions helped with the organization.
One sign of a well made lone star quilt is that all those diamond points are nicely lined up. There are a lot of intersections to be matched up. In order to accomplish that, it is necessary to mark the quarter inch seam on the strips at the intersections and then hold them together with pins. It’s definitely more work, but you can see from the previous photo, that that extra effort results in nicely matched points.
For the smaller inset stars, I was able to cut the strips sets at an angle with the Stripology Ruler, which has 45 degree lines on it.
The corner stars were created with a unique placement of the diamonds, which created an outline of a star. In order to get the corner stars the correct size, it was necessary to add setting triangles and then cut the squares down to size to match the length of the diamonds in the main star.
One of the more challenging aspects of making the quilt was adding the setting corners and setting triangles. They are made the correct size by measuring the length of the diamonds in the main star. Then they are sewn with inset seams. This is accomplished by marking where the quarter inch intersection is located and sewing slow to not stretch the biased edges of the pieces. You are also working with a large quilt top at this point, so there is a lot of fabric to maneuver under the needle.
I like to piece the backing of my quilts with left over fabric from the quilt I am working on. Using many of the large leftover pieces quickly made a backing for the quilt.
The theme of the quilt is stars and thus I picked a quilting design with swirls and stars. When a quilt has a lot of sharp angles in it, it is good to pick a quilting design with curves in it as this will not compete with the quilt.
My long armer for this quilt was Kim from Sunshine quilts. She used a really fine white thread which allows the quilting to pop in the white background areas but does not overtake the colored fabrics in the main star design. Didn’t she do a fantastic job? Here is a link to her Facebook page if you would like to bring, or send, your quilts to her: Sunshine Quilts.
Finally, it was time to bind the quilt and I used a green from the Copperfield collection. My Betty Bobbin sure comes in handy for keeping the binding neat while I am working with it.
The supplies I used to make this project were provided by:
Island Batik Copperfield collection.
Aurifil 50 wt Thread
Hobbs Heirloom Premium 80/20
Schmetz 70/10 Quilting needle
If you are on TikTok, be sure to check out the video I have posted of me with the quilt. (Look for Blue Bear Quilts)
Blue Bear hopes you like this quilt. Please let him know how much you love the this quilt by writing to him in the comments!
The other amazing Island Batik Ambassadors are also posting their December Blog Hop Lone Star quilts. Check out their projects by clicking on the links next to their names to be directed to their blog posts.
December 5
Maryellen McAuliffe, Mary Mack Made Mine
Gail Sheppard, Quilting Gail
December 6
Megan Best, Bestquilter
Brenda Alburl, Songbird Designs
December 7
Preeti Harris, Sew Preeti Quilts
Emily Leachman, The Darling Dogwood
December 8
Jennifer Thomas, Curlicue Creations
December 9
Blog Hop Round-Up Week 1 and Giveaway
WEEK 2
December 12
Reed Johnson, Blue Bear Quilts. Thanks for stopping by!
Suzy Webster, Websterquilt
December 13
Gail Renna, Quilt Haven Threads
Jennifer Fulton, Inquiring Quilter
December 14
Denise Looney, For the Love of Geese
Claudia Porter, Create with Claudia
December 15
Leah Malasky, Quilted Delights
Andi Stanfield, True Blue Quilts
December 16
Blog Hop Round-Up Week 2 and Giveaway
WEEK 3
December 19
Mania Hatziioannidi, Mania for Quilts
Michelle Roberts, Creative Blonde Gifts
December 20
Pamela Boatright, Pamela Quilts
Connie Kauffman, Kauffman Designs
Sandra Starley, Textile Time Travels
December 21
Jane Hauprich, Stitch by Stitch Custom Quilting
Lisa Pickering, Lisa’s Quilting Passion
December 22
Brianna Roberts, Sew Cute and Quirky
Anorina Morris, Samelia’s Mum
Elizabeth DeCroos, Epida Studio
The giveaway of the Blog Hop started on Friday, December 2nd. Each week two lucky winners will each get one Fat Quarter bundle of a complete Island Batik collection. This week, it is Heartland or Emperor’s Treasures by Kathy Engle! To enter for your chance to win one of the two prizes above, follow the simple Rafflecopter prompts below.
This giveaway ends on December, 16th at 11:59 pm PDT. Two random winners will be notified by email on December, 17th and announced on our Facebook page on December, 20th. If the winners do not respond within the first three days after being notified, two new random winners will be chosen. Please check your spam folders!
Make sure to follow Island Batik on social media to hop along with the Lone Star Blog Hop. Be sure to check out the Island Batik Blog.
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