Jelly Roll Lone Star Quilt A Long (Free) - Part 1 - Supplies

 Hello,

My husband told me, "You need to start quilting again." 

He may regret that...I went fabric shopping!!!  Haha!!!!

 And the same day, my mom sent me a text message about how she thinks I should start quilting again and reopen my quilting business.

So...I'm going to give it a go!

I have decided to do only custom quilting services - NOT edge to edge.  Yes, it costs 2.5 as much because it takes more than twice as long.  I don't want to compete with the edge-to-edge services in the area.  There are many that do a good job and I don't feel that is my niche or talent.  It's just not my place in the market.  If you need me to refer you to someone, I can.

My next quilt a long will be my version of the Jelly Roll Lone Star Quilt.

For this project, you will need 2 1/2 yard of fabric for the sashing, 2 1/2 yards of fabric for the white background and 2 jelly rolls of 20 + strips that measure 2 1/2 inches wide.  I chose some gray fabrics from JoAnn's.

In the past, I have had blog fabric sponsors.  Yes, I like getting free fabric, but every time my quilt pattern was chosen for publication, either by a magazine or web publishing, a fabric company sponsored my quilt.  Often, I felt like the quilt was becoming too exclusive.  I felt like the companies were pushing my quilts to be used with only this or that brand of fabric and I found that my readers were hunting high and low to find that exact fabric.  It all felt unnecessary.  I design my quilts to work in many colorways, not fabric or designer specific.  You can use scraps or stuff from Walmart.  Of course, the better-quality fabric, the more heirloom your quilt will be, but I have quilts made from leftovers from my grandmothers.  If you take care of them, it shouldn't matter what name-brand was on the fabric.

CITATIONS AND REFERENCES.

Jellied Lone Star Quilt | modafabrics.com

My version of this quilt is originally from the "Jellied Lone Star Quilt," by TerriAnn of "Childlike Fascination.com" tutorial on the Moda fabrics blog.  (Link above) I am grateful that my patterns have been published by them in the past. 

This is a great tutorial, but knowing me...I have to do it MY WAY.

 In reading through this original tutorial, the finished quilt was only 59 inches wide.  That's just a wall hanging or a kinda-throw.  It's a weird size.  (Sorry, this is just me thinking...) The center Lonestar only ends up to be about 45 inches - a wall hanging or a baby blanket.  There are also a lot of strips leftover if you purchase a Moda 42- piece Jelly Roll.

WHY CAN'T I MAKE IT FULL SIZE?

So...I did.

My variation of this project ends up to be 80 inches square -a nice full size quilt or queen size quilt.  The real trick was using up the extra jelly roll pieces and re-calculating the setting squares and triangles to be large enough for a larger setting.

And here are some photos of some recent projects.

2021- Christmas Quilt

 In honor of my grandmother Goff, who belonged to the group "Quiet Quilters" in Rose Park, Utah, I make a quilt every Christmas and give it to someone who has touched my family's life.  The "Quiet Quilters" is what this group of Relief Society women called themselves, but if you ever attended their gathering, they were, "anything but quiet."  These were a group of retired women who met together and tied quilts on a weekly basis and discussed individuals who needed some extra love in their life.  Then, they would have my grandfather doorbell-ditch the quilt on that persons' doorstep.

This year's Christmas quilt goes to a neighbor family who was there for my family in a very dark time.  They had a similar trial and bore their testimony to my family that if you "just keep praying and just keep reading your scriptures - particularly the Book of Mormon, everything will work out."  Because their outreach meant so much to me, they got this year's "Portable Hug."

Here are photos.  For this project, I made my "Sweet Sixteen" quilt and set it on point.  It was quilted with my Baptist Fan "Groovy Boards."

2020 - What a year!

 2020 saw the Coronavirus pandemic, my parent's home burn down, my oldest son graduate high school ("virtually"), taking a road trip to hike Bryce Canyon, more high school football, entering the world of high school wrestling and me changing teaching to the school my children attend.  My youngest son is in my honor's biology class this school year.

Sewing Coronavirus masks..who knew sewing would come "back in style?"

GHS "Virtual" Graduation, 2020.

Hiking in Bryce Canyon National Park

I miss my old classroom and department at THS.  My new classroom at GHS is just a room, no lab.  At least I get to be with my own children.  

I miss teaching chemistry with the lab bench and the fun students had doing experiments.

Green flame!

After not having a working quilting machine for 2+ years, my husband let me purchase a used HandiQuilter Sweet 16 in late October.   I was able to do some quilts for Christmas.

The quilt setting pattern I used for this one was from Angela Walter's "Dot to Dot" class on Craftsy.  I changed the center 4-patch into a star.  Unfortunately, the "lifetime membership" to that class has been wiped out by the change to "BluePrint" and then back to "Craftsy".  I gave the quilt to my daughter's violin teacher.  She has come out to our home for lessons and even helped us choose a new violin for her, even in the middle of a pandemic.  She has served my family so much this year and I wanted to do something to show our gratitude.

This "Checkerboard Christmas Quilt" went to my mom and dad.  My dad really liked it and was grateful for it.  These sentimental items were lost in the fire.  Here is hoping to getting their home rebuilt in 2021!  The cardinal and holly sashing fabric was actually from my mom's "craft cave", prior to the fire.  The other prints reflect my children at Christmas time, when they were young.

My new/used HandiQuilter is stitch regulated, a luxury I've never had before.  I was able to quilt the "Christmas Cookies" pantograph by "Urban Elementz" on this project.  I chose that panto because my daughter used to sing "Christmas Cookies and Holiday Hearts" non-stop in the lower elementary school grades.

I gave this one to my in-laws.

I free-hand quilted bump-back feathers on it, edge to edge style.

Well, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  Here is to a hopeful 2021!  Sending good vibes to anyone out there!

I'm sure that wasn't the "Manufacturer's recommendations"....

Yay! It's off the frame and completed. I'm not sure what happened to my quilting machine head. I took it off the frame to put on a domestic machine. In the process, I removed the new presser foot and knocked off the fly wheel. Then, I hit it to put the fly wheel in. Fixed! It's no longer jammed! My hubs said, "It's working? Don't hit it again, you'll jinks it!" I'm sure its not manufacturer's recommendations, but I got my daughters quilt done!

Thanks for all of the comments on my last post.  I agree, I do enjoy reading the "story" behind the quilt and project that can be shared with blogging -- and agree it is missing on Instagram. :)

Have a great day!

Where did everyone go?

Well...I spent some time looking through my favorite blogs and discovered that no one is updating them anymore.

Where did they go?

INSTAGRAM.

So...I made myself an Instagram page...then found new blogs and "Linky Parties" to follow and updated my button column.

Please follow me on Instagram at:

https://www.instagram.com/moderntraditionquilts/

In other news....."Big Bertha" -- my quilting machine bit the dust.  I took it in in march to have it overhauled.  While sewing last Saturday, the shaft in the fly wheel jammed and the crank came off.  It's done -- so my quilting blog may have to take a look at hand quilting for a while.

NUTS!

I was working on this quilt -- it has 20 blocks to do.  I completed 3 rows -- but not the 4th when the machine broke.  I'm not sure how to finish this quilt now.

They say "good luck" comes in 3's.  Does "bad luck" come in 3's?  My teenage son's car blew out a piston and needed a new engine, so we gave that vehicle to charity and purchased a new vehicle.  The following week, the quilting machine broke....and last week we got another teenage driver to insure at our house (that's a good thing -- not a bad thing).  So...no $$ to fix or buy a new machine.  I guess for now, I'll stick with my husband's quote: "Good thing...bad thing...I don't know!"

At least mom and grandma taught me how to hand quilt!

This is how I was quilting it.

Cross-hatching and feathers!

And...this is how far I got when the machine broke.

At lest I finished these two before it broke...nice edge to edge to edge.

This is the edge to edge pantograph from Urban Elementz called "Plumeria".  I can be downloaded for FREE here: https://www.urbanelementz.com/quilting-designs.html?category_ue=264&p=2