Lancaster Diamonds

Done!

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Lancaster Diamonds

My Lancaster Diamonds project has been waiting for me -- I set it aside quite a while ago because I wasn't looking forward to working with all those bias edges.

 

But I finally stopped procrastinating, squared everything up, and added nice tidy framing borders.

It has moved forward to the To-Be-Quilted queue and will be finished soon!

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Monday

I finally finished piecing my Lancaster Diamonds top -- confusing for me the whole time!  Diamonds plus on-point were a double challenge!   I'm very pleased with my result, and glad I didn't abandon this.  Onward to trimming and adding borders ...

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Lancaster Diamonds

A quiet kid-free day today, so I was able to concentrate and conquer that confusing diamond sashing.  Suddenly it all begins to come into focus!

These nasturtiums blooming outside my studio are volunteers from seeds that Lorenzo and Lucci planted a couple of years ago.  They keep coming back, and they are gorgeous this spring from all the rain we had.

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Lancaster Diamonds

My Lancaster Diamond project bubbled back up to the top of my consciousness this week.  

I spread out all my blocks to see where I'd left off back in February.  Hmmm, sort of in the Hot Mess category here, aren't we?  The blocks are completely bias edged, so I'm trying not to handle them much, and I'm reluctant to pin them up on the design curtain.  Everything has been starched for as much stabilization as possible, and onward I go.

Because of the various-sized diamond shapes, it's challenging for me to visualize the layout and to anticipate the final quilt dimensions.  I'm feeling unusually dyslexic -- normally I just look at a project and the arithmetic finishes itself in my mind in a minute.  And I was a bit surprised to realize that the sashing pieces are two different directional mirror-image cuts.  (Which I realized after I cut a bunch all the same. Sigh.)  I'm going to need to pay close attention and take cutting and sewing slowly until I get into a groove with this.

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Lancaster Diamonds

Back to Lancaster Diamonds today.  I pieced another assortment of diamond blocks, and it's official:  I've reached the limit of my attention span for this project.  

The block colors are kind of saying 'sunflower' to me, so I spread them out onto an offhand piece of yellow yardage, and it looks pretty good.  I'll probably head toward yellow for sashing and try either green or red calico for the small diamond cornerstones.  

In other news, everyone at Dave's house has come down with Covid.  (Again.  They all had it last January and it took a while for all of them to get past it.)   Since I am dangerously immune-compromised due to the meds I'm taking, we won't be seeing them/babysitting till they all test negative  :(

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Lancaster Diamonds

 

I've been working slowly but steadily on my long-term Lancaster Diamond Sampler project.  It seems that I've settled into a pace of about four blocks per week.  The diamond blocks are approximately 5" x 7", and in many cases the pieces being sewn are less than 1".

I don't have any particular destination or size in mind for my completed sampler.  Probably not nearly as many blocks as the 170+ in the original.  The arithmetic required for 'diamonds plus diamond sashing' makes resizing a bit of a challenge, so I'm not really sure.  I do have plenty of fabric, so I'll just continue working along until I get tired of diamonds.

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Lancaster Diamonds

Now that the holiday hubbub has been put away for another year, I'm happy to be back out in the studio.  I have several ideas that I'm excited about launching.

To begin with, I started piecing the first few Lancaster Diamond blocks using my tub full of traditional calicoes.

  

These blocks are not difficult -- the original quilt was a learning sampler, so reinterpretations can be casual rather than precisely exact.  The pieces are small, some of the strips are only 1/2"!  It seems as if the girl making the original blocks was using up scraps that didn't always fit together evenly -- I see that she did lots of filling in with extra little bits.  This will be a nice slow comfortable project.  I'm aiming for a mid-year completion

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Lancaster Diamonds

Ahem -- so here's one of those infamous 'squirrel' projects that seems to have (re)captured my attention.  

This project is based on the re-creation of an antique sampler quilt from Pennsylvania. I bought the book and template for the Lancaster Diamond Sampler Quilt several years ago, and even had a full set of fabrics pulled, organized into a project tub, and ready to go.  But the inclination faded from my radar for some reason, and then we moved, etc. etc., so this stuff has been in 'remote parking' in my stash for years already.  

Just recently the author,  Ann Holt, announced a Lancaster Diamond quilt-along on Instagram beginning in January.  And since I have everything ready and waiting ... why not?  I enjoy the challenge of complicated piecing.  I'll go ahead with my original tub full traditional calicoes, but don't plan to include pinks in my version, although the actual antique quilt is very pink.  And I'll be aiming for a smaller project than the 170+ blocks in the antique original.  

 

Blog friends Julie and Nancy are also planning to sew along.

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