A friend of mine was clearing out storage space, and found a kit for a Lone Star Quilt. She mailed it to me, and I’m assembling it for her.
A Lone Star is a traditional quilt pattern, consisting of eight diamond shapes assembled into a star. Each diamond consists of proportionally-similar diamonds, 36 in number (the astrologer in me notes that 8×36 = 288, or the number of decans in eight Earth orbits or years — the amount of time it takes Venus to do thirteen orbits).
In any case, I have eight of these huge diamonds to assemble out of 36 diamonds each. Each diagonal row of pre-cut diamonds from the kit has to be arranged in the pattern of colors provided, and then sewn together. Several of these rows are then sewn together to form a diamond. Each rubber-band-bound pack of pieces contains four emerald-colored pieces, eight lilac pieces, twelve purple pieces, sixteen yellows, twenty “blue jay”, twelve light blues, and ten whites. It’s enough to make two complete diamonds. There are four diamond packs, and so there are eight of the larger diamond shapes — forming an eight-pointed star, which will need 21.5″x21.5″ squares and half-squares at the corners and between the points to make an 83″-ish square quilt.
That’s the theory.
Layout is pretty critical. The pieces need to overlap one another slightly, so as to create the needed space for connection to the next layer, and see that the diamond pieces are more or less flat and regularly-shaped once assembled. I’ve gotten this process mostly right, and I’m getting better the more pieces I assemble.
Or maybe that’s an illusion.
There’s a lot of short and long stitches holding this quilt together. Each line of pieces is held together one line of stitches about 2-3″ long. And then one row of six pieces is held to another row of six pieces, by one long line of stitching that’s maybe 18″ or so long. And then the diamonds themselves are held together by a stitch that’s about the same length. 
I’m going to have to undo that last line of stitching, joining the two large diamonds together, though. I don’t like the green and lilac to be right at the middle; and I don’t want the white diamonds to break up the ‘spray’ of the star So, I think I’ll reverse them — so that there’s a circle of white diamonds around the center of the circle.
But really, I should withhold judgement a bit longer in any case. Once I have another two of the large diamonds complete, or even all of them done, I can try three possible layouts — white circle, blue circle, or alternating segments — and see which one works best for my client. I think the quilt will be quite stunning.
