Lone Star baby quilt

A Lone Star is one of those quilts that I've always sort of wanted to make but always thought that it would be too difficult and way beyond any skill level I could ever hope to attain.  Then I saw this tutorial at Better Off Thread.  It seemed doable, especially in the baby size, and my brother-in-law and his wife happen to be expecting a baby girl in September!  Since we all live in Texas, a lone star seemed like it would be a good quilt pattern for this particular baby, and the tutorial uses 2 1/2" strips - a perfect fit, since I had an extra Simply Color jelly roll lying around!  The baby's nursery is going to be purple and green, so I pulled some purple, green, and grey strips from the jelly roll and went to work.

It was way easier than I expected.  I followed the instructions in the tutorial for matching the diamond points, and it worked perfectly!  Not all of the points are as good as the ones in this photo, but most of them are very close.  I pressed the seams open, marked with a pen where the seams should intersect, pinned them a LOT, and watched very closely to make sure the seams actually went where they were supposed to.  I'm learning to love pinning - it gets such beautiful results!

I decided to use a moon and stars print for the background of the star and for most of the backing.  I initially wanted to use a solid, but I had a hard time finding a solid that I liked to match the colors in the star, so I went with this instead. 

The backing includes a little girl sailboat print.  I married into a sailing family, so I figure there's a good chance that my niece will grow up to love sailing just like her parents, grandmother, and great-grandfather.  I quilted the star and it's narrow border in the ditch and then did a loopy meander on the background.  The tension on the back of the free-motion sections isn't perfect, but it's not so bad and it did get a little bit better when I washed it, so I'm hopeful that it will continue to improve and even out over time as the quilt is loved and washed and dried.  Overall, I think it turned out great!

I hope that my niece and her parents enjoy the quilt as she grows up.  I certainly enjoyed making it, and it has convinced me that I can make a bed-sized lone star in the future!