Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Another UFO, the tale of many Lone Stars.

In 2001 I worked on the book Great Lakes, Great Quilts for the MSU Museum and C&T Publishing. It was my job, with my colleague Mary Worrall to reproduce 12 quilts from the collection and write the patterns, too. One of the quilts I reproduced was this Native American Lone Star from the Museum's collection.

Below is the reproduction quilt that I made (with fabulous machine quilting from Kari Ruedisale).
I strip pieced the diamonds and had extra left on each strip. I used them to make this little quilt. It measures 28" x 32".
 I still had more diamonds left so I put them together. Just last week I got the star out, added the setting triangles and rectangles to come up with this.






















The center diamond is 36" x 36". I pinned it to my design wall to admire it and noticed I put one diamond in backwards. Now I don't believe in putting in a mistake on purpose to appease the quilt gods. I error all on my own. So I took it apart and fixed it. Another of my goals is to master my EQ7 program. I went to my computer, created the center lone star and played around with the borders. I came up with this.

This week I'm on vacation from work. I was going up North, but the weather is bad so DH decided to delay our trip one day. That gives me today to sew. I'm working on the corner blocks in the border. I'll post when the top is done.

So 10 years later, I'll get this project done. Did I mention, I'm only using fabric from my stash? Bonus.

Till next time....Happy Quilting

11 comments:

  1. That book, "Great Lakes, Great Quilts" is a great book!

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  2. Beth, I AM impressed! They are all beautiful and I applaud you for continuing with these lovely quilts after so many years. Daisy

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  3. 10 Years was worth the wait!...the borders you designed for it are great!....perfect design for that star. I look forward to seeing the finished top!!
    Tim

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  4. I have to say, that I feel SOOOO much better. The only Lone Star I ever did took me 8 years. Mostly b/c there was a small error, but I had small children and it was a Loooong time (5 years) before I decided to pull it out of the box of abandoned projects where it was living.

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  5. What's the EQ7 program? Is that software for your computer or your sewing machine?

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  6. hmmm --- it's almost like rabbits reproducing! I like the planned border and, I'm assuming, we saw the quilt with the inverted diamond. It is noticeable, but I often don't see my errors until it is too late to fix them! I don't remember --- did you hand applique all of that? Enjoy your vacation!

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  7. I can't wait to see in done. Love what you have come up with on EQ.

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  8. Love your reproduction with the applique. Beautiful work.

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  9. Sharon EQ7 is a computer program for drafting and planning quilts. Thanks for stopping by.

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  10. Beth, I've had EQ since it was a DOS program, and I've NEVER mastered it. :) You certainly made a lot of diamonds, didn't you, and you put them to good use. All the quilts are wonderful, and I can't wait to see the last one when it's done.

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  11. It is possible I will be at both MSU and UM this fall for work. Do you have connections that could get me a nice look at the quilts??

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