Quilt Surgery

Last week's finish was a long time coming. Every time I teach a Lone Star class, I make a Lone Star to demonstrate all the steps involved. I learn best by seeing something done, and I think a lot of other people do too.

I used similar fabrics (Civil War reproductions) in the first four classes, intending to put all four into one larger quilt. What else are you going to do with a growing pile of small stars? I don't know that many newborns, and one on my wall is enough! I had one star to finish assembling.

After completing the last star, I discovered one of the previous stars had a pretty wavy edge.  It wasn't going to match the other three.  What to do? Quilt surgery, that's what! I had to resize that piece by trimming off one edge to square it up. The new fit was perfect.

I added sashing and 9-patch cornerstones to join the four stars. At the last minute I substituted a green fabric for the light tan in the cornerstones. As soon as it was together, I knew I had made a mistake. Yes, the green pulled out the small amounts of green in the stars, but there was no value difference with the purple fabric. Plus it broke up the flow of the sashing design by introducing a third fabric.

What to do? More quilt surgery! I had nine cornerstones to remove from a 90" square top. Removing and replacing the four corners was like removing appendixes, the four side cornerstones like setting broken limbs. But replacing the center cornerstone was like doing open heart surgery. Kinda tricky and very cumbersome.

The final result was well worth the extra effort. It's a more cohesive design; the cornerstones weave right into the sashing. Welcome to the world, Four-Square Star!

Now, do I add a border or just bind it with that green fabric???