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Recently I taught a Lone Star workshop for a delightful guild in Burlington, WI – the Chocolate City Quilters (don’t you just love that name?). We used the Quiltsmart™ interfacing method I shared about in my February 15th post (click here if you’d like to revisit that post). Twenty-two quilters participated in the class and the quilts they worked on were varied and gorgeous. I so wish I had taken some pictures. So here’s a quick request before I get to my “topic of the week”. If you’ve taken a Lone Star class with me, and you’ve finished your star, please email me a picture at: . I think these quilts will make an exciting blog quilt show.

Now on to medallion centers. This is one of my Lone Star tops in which I used a Pointillism fabric for the background (I really need to border and quilt this one  🙂 ):

When making a medallion style quilt, like a Lone Star or a Mariner’s Compass; or whenever a block has 8 seams coming together in one center point – it can be difficult to get the center right the first time. The biggest problem with this is that ripping and resewing can cause the fabric to weaken and the center to get worse instead of better. There is a slick trick for making this easier, and the ladies in the Chocolate City Guild class said they thought it would be a good one to share on the blog. So here goes. My sample was done on a  “Spin Star” block .

1. Once you have the 8 sections ready, sew them together in pairs (making quarters); and then sew the pairs into two halves.

2. Line up the halves, and pin into position along the entire seam.

3. Set the sewing machine for a long basting stitch and sew a short portion of the seam only, beginning 1″ prior to the center seam and ending 1″ beyond it (my sewing machine stitches didn’t show well, so I drew in the blue stitches to make it clearer).

4. Remove the block/top from the machine and peek at the center. If you got it right, set the machine for a regular stitch length and sew the entire seam. If it wasn’t quite right,

remove the basting stitches, re-pin, and resew with basting stitches once again until you get it right, then sew the entire seam.

In this way you only need to rip out 2″ of basting stitches if it isn’t correct, and not a long seam of normal length stitches.

Have a blessed Memorial Day weekend. I’m praying for all our service men and women, and their families, as well as our veterans. How blessed we are to have the freedoms we do, and how grateful I am for those who serve, and have served, to keep us free!

I’ve returned from the sunshine of Arizona to the freezing rain of Wisconsin. It was a wonderful trip and the beauty of God’s creation is truly awe inspiring.

I’m glad to be home and excited to be back in quilting mode. So, here’s the quilty post I promised  😀 !

If you’ve ever won a stack of blocks at a guild meeting and wanted to put them together into one quilt, but found they were not all the same size – read on! I often see stacks of blocks like this brought into my open lab classes. I must admit, I’ve had two projects of my own – “block of the month”stacks,  that were supposed to become a sampler quilt, but they didn’t all match up. I’ve tried a number of solutions, and this one is my favorite. It uses a technique I shared in a blog post a few years ago (https://chrisquilts.net/?p=4070), and I’d like to revisit it now. In essence, each block is turned on point, and these added triangles make alternate hourglass blocks.

Another advantage to this technique is that your quilt doubles in size from the area covered by the initial blocks.

Turning all the blocks on point

1. Square up all your blocks (they will be different sizes, but that’s ok – they just need to be square).

2. Choose two fabrics to be the “hourglass” corners.

3. Find the largest block and place the ruler as in the picture (diagonal line on vertical center of block, and even along both edges – mine are at 6 1/4″).

Add 2″ to this measurement and cut out two squares of one “hourglass” fabric this size. Cut both squares on one diagonal, and sew to all four sides of your block. This will turn the block “on point” (for the more detailed instructions from my previous post, please click here and scroll down to the blue/black star block).

You’ll need to cut 2 squares (yielding 4 triangles) for each block from one “hourglass” fabric. Half of the blocks will be from one fabric, and the other from the second fabric. In this way you’ll be able to “checkerboard” your blocks, by alternating the hourglass fabrics, when you put the top together.

4. Square all the blocks up to the size of the smallest.

5. These blocks may now be sewn together into a lovely quilt, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that they need to be put together on the diagonal. If you don’t know how to do that, I found wonderful instructions on this site:  http://delawarequilts.com/HelpfulHints/DiagonalSet.html. The measurements given are for an exact fit. Since I like to give myself a little margin for error (and I like a bit of float around my points), I would add 1″ to the cut sizes for the squares.

Modern Quilts

A few weeks ago I invited readers to send pictures of their modern style quilts. Mary Ann and Juleen did just that, and I know you’ll enjoy them. Mary Ann’s is a crib quilt she’s been working on in my Open Lab class. She finished it since our last class and sent this lovely photo:

Juleen sent photos of two of her recent projects. Both are delightful!

Thanks ladies!