More Tea?

After squaring up the Lone Star Quilt, I started thinking about the leftover diamonds that make up my first border.  I drew that in and thought, hey no problem, and will be a good use for the leftover strips.

I didn't count on a couple of things.  One to make the border go around and around at each intersection - there are 16 on this star, the diamonds change their slant from one direction to the other.  Hence half of my leftovers, about 60 +/- pieces have had to be seam ripped apart and then sewn back together to slant the other way.  That's taken a while because the one bargello I made was strip pieced and the directions clearly said to lower the stitches per inch to make it easier to unpick the tubes as needed - well that just made a radial mess as what goes for a standard seam allowance for someone else seemed to make mine fall apart - at least in those beginning days.  So this time I knew better.  Let me count...  My stitches in the Lone star are about 15 per inch, so that's a lot of nit picky ripping.  At least that's all done.

Now I just need to cut a few extra diamonds - 22 I believe, and then I'll be piecing them back together.  This really does make me feel like I fell down the rabbit hole.  With all those extra strips and ripped apart diamonds why do I need to cut more you ask?  Well it occured to me that this quilt is so neat patterned and orderly, that I really wanted to keep that patterned look rather than just scrappy here and there as I would be concerned it would ruin the over all effect.

Don't recall what I'm talking about?  Just look up at the sketch.  I'm talking about that small border that goes around all the humps and bumps just after the star and background pieces.  This is no a border I've seen anywhere else, and trust me last night when I was trying to figure out how to make everything work I went looking for other people to try a border like this, and didn't have any luck.  Talk about a plunge in the dark.  That's okay though, I'm sure I have it worked out now.

Now if you'll excuse me I think it's lunch time.  Wont you join me in the dining room?  You will need to grab one of these or you will be simply to small to reach the door knob! 

Our pictures this afternoon can all be traced back to their creators, the real workers on this fine day here.