Lone Star weekend in Wisconsin!

Olive and Me Retreat in Palmyra, WI, held a mini retreat/class last weekend. There were five of us on board. The project, taught by Cheryl Gerbing of Waukesha, was a 72" Lone Star, supposedly doable in one weekend.

It was a congenial group, with lots of variety in stars being made.



I haven't shared here the amount of pre-class fabric dithering and waffling that went on in my head. Use your imagination... My friends were thoroughly sick of me. Should I try out the stack of Amy Butler and such-like prints I had bought at Yellow Bird? What about my African fabrics? Or should I go antique-y? The final decision involved three shopping trips to far-flung places in my state and quite a bit of money spent.

No, I never learn.

Antique-y won out. Christmas-y antique-y.


And after much dithering about the size star I wanted, I decided to go with the 72" version, which called for three inch cut strips. My thinking is that a bed-sized Christmas quilt would be fun. And of course, red, green, and gold are seen in lots of old quilts. This doesn't have to be just for the holidays.



As promised, the pieced diamonds for the star are finished, but not assembled into the star.


I'm liking.

I'm having a problem with the gigantic setting squares and triangles--it's very hard for me to leave 22 inches square of unpieced real estate on any quilt. This quilt would have four unpieced squares of that size as setting squares. Plus the setting triangles, which also look HUGE to me.

What to do? I'm considering my options right now. I'm liking the idea of New York Beauty blocks quite a bit and have been playing in EQ. I've also been consulting some of my quilt history books, looking for something that's authentic but not too much work.

Stay tuned...