Modern Lone Star

For the longest time, I have been admiring Janice's Scrappy Lone Star Quilt from the blog Better Off Thread.  When I saw a tutorial existed from Janice herself, I knew another quilt was in my future.  I just had to bide my time and wait for the perfect recipient.  When MC, the mom-to-be of the recent baby shower decor post, announced her pregnancy at a lovely girls night out, I knew I had found the person. 

Now I was faced with all the important questions of making a quilt.  What fabric should I use?  Should I center the lone star or take the modern route and slice it in half and move it to the side of the quilt?  I took the easy way out and asked the mom-to-be.  I had two different fabric collections I was looking at and I let her choose based on the images on my phone (which is a really lousy way to look at fabric by the way).  She ended up choosing Angela Walter's Texture collection, which is the collection I was leaning towards as well.  I also asked her if she wanted something more traditional or modern.  She chose modern, so I was done with all the major decisions.

I printed off the tutorial and followed the instructions to a tee until it came time to completely piece the front.  I made the whole lone star and sliced it into 2 unequal halves.  Can I just say slicing a piecing project with 45 degree angles was not the easiest thing to do.  I didn't want to screw it up and have to do it all over again.  I also didn't want to discard the smaller of the sliced pieces, so I figured out a way to incorporate it into the front.  It's my version of the scrappy lone star quilt and I'm really proud that I was able to piece it all together in a slightly new way.

The back of the quilt uses the panel from the Texture fabric collection and the teal accent color that surrounds the star for the baby's initial.  I was a little bummed that I didn't meet the requirements for the Make It Right Challenge, but I had already finished the quilt before the challenge was publicized.  The winners are posted here and there are some really great projects.  I honestly don't think I would have stood a chance.

The quilting was a bit challenging because I was meeting up two similar quilting patterns in the middle and I had to make them look like I was doing it on purpose without any hiccups.  This is the first time I took my straight-line quilting to a new level and it turned out better than I could have hoped for.  I'm really pleased with the finished product.