Quilting is not like riding a bike

My 8-pointed Lemoyne Star

When I decided to get back to quilting, I figured I’d dust off my sewing machine and with little effort could commence to creating my next masterpiece. I soon found out it wasn’t that simple. I realized that quilting requires not just experience, but practice. It isn’t as easy as it looks, or as easy as it used to be. Taking a hiatus left me (seamingly) skill-less.

My first project would be a baby quilt, using six Lemoyne Star blocks, some sashing, perhaps cornerstones, and borders.

Normally I like all the aspects of quiltmaking, from fabric selection to precision cutting to piecing, to quilting, and finally binding.

With rotary cutter in hand, I started cutting out all the pieces of fabric I’d need. That went pretty well. Then I set out to sew them together. Wow, why did I start with an 8-point star? What would have been wrong with a nice simple design that didn’t include y-seams and points to match, and triangles on the bias. Yikes! What did I get myself into?

I set out to watch some You Tube videos on making the star. Alex Anderson of thequiltshow.com one of my personal heroes, had a great on-line tutorial. I watched it, but when I got ready to make the blocks, I couldn’t find it again. Edyta Sitar had a great tutorial, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV-LPJpl0JU and so did Jaye Lapachet from her blog at Artquiltmaker.com.

Looked easy enough. When I set out to make my blocks, it wasn’t as easy as it looked. I had made Y-seams before with little trouble, but coming back from a two-year hiatus, quilting was like a new activity. My experience meant nothing. It wasn’t like riding a bike, where you just get back on and the balance, the peddling, and the steering all works again. I was taken aback at how difficult it was to manipulate the fabric so as to not have puckers and to get the blocks to lay flat. The best advice I can give when making these blocks with a Y-seam is do not sew into the seam allowance.

Lemoyne Star baby quilt blocks

The first day I made two blocks. Yes, there was some seam ripping, and some interesting language emanating from my quilting space, but I managed to get them done. The second day I made two more. Then the third day, I made the final two. It got easier as it went. The points match pretty well. The blocks lay flat, with the help of some spray starch and a very hot iron.

I probably used all the methods in the aforementioned tutorials when creating the blocks, so on the back of the piece, my seams don’t all go in the same direction. I may have some problem with that when I go to quilt the piece, but I will try to remember that. Once I get to the quilting, I'm sure that is a brand new skill to learn as well. 

All in all, I think the blocks look pretty good. I predict this will be a fine baby quilt. At least I hope so.