Lone Star Rising Higher Quilt

It’s a bit of a Ta Da moment!
My Lone Star quilt made with Karen Lewis’s new fabric is finished!

My Instagram followers will have seen this coming to life over the last month or so and I’m sure will also have heard over there about Karen’s new fabric line with Robert Kaufman.

I am a huge fan of Karen’s screen printed fabric (as seen in my recent Buffer Wheel quilt) so I was very excited to be let into a little secret, way back in March when Karen came to stay with me. And as those of you who read my last post will know I am really good at keeping secrets!

Karen had loved the Lone Star Rising quilt I designed for Quilt Now magazine earlier in the year and asked if I could make a version of this with some of her new fabric line once she got hold of it.

So, what seems like ages ago now, I chose some fabrics, on screen, from her first collection with Robert Kaufman, which is called Blueberry Park.

Even though I am quite familiar with Kona colours (these are all printed on Kona shades), it was quite difficult to decide!

But I was very happy when they arrived and looked so fantastic together! Something about the white pattern on top of the vibrant shades really ticks all my boxes.

I have ordered A LOT of Blueberry Park for the shop including all the designs I’ve used here. The fabric should be hitting shops in November. As Karen will be visiting again to teach with us in November I am hoping to organise a ‘shopping evening’ on Saturday 21st (so ‘make a date’!). Fingers crossed the fabric has arrived by then!

This is a scaled down version of my earlier quilt with the diamonds two thirds of the size of the original. I decided to add more background to the bottom to make it the right size for a single bed and to create the effect of the ‘Lone Star Sun’ rising higher into the sky, hence the name. It is 180cm x 125cm (71 x 49 inches).

This extra background also meant some negative space to go to town on my FMQ a little. You can see the quilting a little better on the back.

I quilted what a call ‘sun creatures’ meandering all over the star part, then I quilted ‘rays’ coming out from the ‘sun’ and filled these with spirals, bubbles, mussels and more sun creatures.

This is definitely the most ambitious FMQ I have tackled to far, and I did wonder how much easier those long wavy ‘ray’ lines would be if I had a long-arm machine! But I managed with my trusty Pfaff.

I used Aurifil 50 in a gold shade #5015 (for the star) and a mint #2835 (for the background).

The backing fabric is a special extra wide quilt back fabric by Tula Pink. The range is called ‘Free Fall’ quilt backing, it’s 108″ (270cm) wide and comes in 6 colours and will be available in the UK in October/November. It also has a lovely ‘sateen’ finish. I bordered it with some Kona Cerise and the binding is another Tula Pink fabric from her Eden line.

I had some left over diamond strips so I made this mini quilt which I used to try out some of my FMQ ideas before I started quilting. I also have some left over fabric and I have decided to giveaway the quilt and the fabric on Instagram in a few days time. I am really sorry for those of you not on Instagram and I promise I will host a giveaway over here soon too! I try to alternate giveaways between blog, Instagram and Facebook to keep things fair.

I’ve really enjoyed working with Karen’s gorgeous fabric on this project, it is perfect for the Lone Star pattern. I just can’t wait to get my full order in!

I don’t think this will be the last Lone Star Rising quilt I make either, I am teaching a workshop in this next month (fully booked I’m afraid!) so will probably start another as a class sample!