Lone Star: 6 of 8

Lone Star Piecing

Every once in a while we work on something that turns out great enough to take our breath away.  I think my Lone Star just might be one of those projects.  Because when I spread it out on the floor so that we could see I couldn't help but think, look what I did!  I now have 6 of my 8 diamonds sewn.  If I were piecing these one at a time that's 384 little diamonds.

Let me see, what can I tell you today?  Don't use the 1/4" quilters tape on this project.  It's bad!  Why?  Well, you see you put the tape on one strip, and then mark your diamond joints with standing pins and sew.  But the tape does something.  It holds the diamonds so they can not stretch, not even a little bit.  Why is this bad?  Because the second strip the one you are sewing to, will stretch!  Even with the most gentle handling the fabric without the tape will stretch a little bit and then the strips wont line up and when they do you end up with a mess that you have to seam rip apart.  If you forego the tape; as you handle the two strips, pinning them together, and lining up they do stretch a little bit, but that's okay because they stretch and move together.  I suppose you could tape both strips before pinning and sewing but that seems like a waste of tape and the directions on my package were very clear not to stitch through the tape which could happen accidently if you had it on both strips.  I am glad to have the tape as I've wanted it for a while and will just save it for other projects.  Not this one.

Now I can't stand it anymore!  What do you think about my Lone Star so far?!?!