Native American Morning Star Quilt

[breemonkey]

Hi everyone!

I am a fairly experienced (I'd say intermediate level) quilter considering a native American morning star quilt.  I have heard that they are incredibly difficult with all of those bias edge pieces.  Have any of you made one of these before?  Do you have any advice or book/pattern recommendations for me?  Any help would be appreciated!

[anaximander]

No, but I have made a lot of quilts with huge amounts of bias edges. The thing I'd make sure of on that one is that your machine feeds fabric very evenly. Any stretching (top or bottom) will be much, much worse.

There's a quilt in a day book for that one, I'd suggest looking into it - http://www.amazon.com/Morning-Star-Quilt-Day/dp/0922705127 - she tends to walk you through stuff in a fairly comprehensive manner, isn't terribly wastey, etc.

[MareMare]

I don't know how hard they are, but I just wanted to say that there is a giant gorgeous one hanging up at my clinic (I go to the Native American clinic) and I stare at it everytime I'm there!

Can't you make one with strip piecing methods? Kind of "cheating"?

[strider_girl]

Are you talking about the morning star quilt that looks like a lone star or a star of bethlehem? They are difficult- you can cut lots of diamonds quickly if you start with strips, but it's a pain to get all of those points to line up.

Maybe start with a dry run- a smaller star. Make a star that is two or three rows, and see how it goes. That way, you can work out the kinks on something that's a lot less overwhelming than one of the huge diamond stars with 5 or 7 rows. I think that they're beautiful quilts, but having done a smaller star, I know that I need to wait a little while longer to do a big lone star, unless I want to spend half my time ripping out seams and trying to get the points to line up.

[SherNWT]

I would say try to find a paper pieced version it really does make the bias edged pieces a little better.