jillaine

Sigh...
Despite what I had believed to be accurate measuring, sewing and cutting, I clearly did something wrong because my lone-star diamonds are not "right". Now I have eight worthless 6x6 diamonds and I don't know what to do with them. I am horrified that I've done all this work and that I didn't catch the problem right away. I mean the diamonds are catty-wampus. Any suggestions for what to do with these, other than cremate them?

rismstress

Looks like some of your seam allowances are not really 1/4". As much as less than 1/16" off a few times will screw it all up. Remeasure your diamonds and resew. Been there. Done that.
Cheryl

ktbb

since you;ve got so many bias edges you could try starching and sizing the diamonds to shape by pinning them to a board for drying..draw out the shape they should be then pin to that size after they're wet with starch and let dry...

Or, separate each of the dimonds and applique them to a solid background and add sashing, etc to enlarge the star design and hide the discrepancies in size...your own design.

sewgarden

It's to pretty not to re sew and get it right

jillaine

My fear about re-sewing is that the bias-- which is probably already stretched from my poor attempts to "make it fit gosh darn it!" -- is too far gone.

This started out stripped, and it's quite possible that my 1/4" weren't 1/4" from the beginning which means undoing everything down to the individual diamond, correct?

I'm not sure I have the heart for that (6x6x8=288). So I'm now wondering if anyone has suggestions for something to do with these catty-wampus parallelograms other than a lone star.

I'm so heart-broken. Do you really think it's worth it to take it down to 288 pieces and start over?

jss

leatheflea

It looks to me that they are all stretched in the same way. When sewing did you alternate the direction in which you sewed? Ive not done a lonestar but I know in other strip piecing sometimes if you sew the other way it helps. I think i would try ktbb's suggestion.

quilter1943

Have you tried to reposition them? That might help. In the photo it looks like some of them that aren't next to each other might fit better with another one. Not sure if that makes sense. Move them around . . .

jillaine

1943, I did try that. As you may be able to tell from the photo, I took a big piece of butcher paper and drew out the lines into which the diamonds should have fit. I rearranged them every which way and always had at least two that wouldn't fit.

I'm now wondering if I did something wrong from the very beginning-- like when I cut the diagonal strips (from the horizontal) that I cut them too wide.

Mmm... maybe there's a solution there? undo each of the strips and re-measure *those*; when stitched together, shouldn't each of the individual diamonds be "perfect" diamonds, not as "stretched" as they currently are?

quilter1943

They should be diamonds. I haven't done one for so long and back then we cut each piece by hand. Maybe you want to try the starching or just dampen then and try to block them all to one sizie/shape. It's a shame not to use them. The colors are so pretty.

costumegirl

It's so pretty - I would not give up and keep trying to mke it work.