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Today, September 17th, is Constitution Day.  237 years ago today, the Constitution of the United States of America was signed.  Have you ever really studied how those months of deliberation progressed?   A few years ago I read Plain Honest Men, the most extensive account – and most excellent – I’ve ever read of the constitutional convention.  It’s difficult to describe my gratitude for that revolutionary generation.  I love this holiday!

The older I get, the more my patriotism is rooted in the founding documents of the nation.  I am more unimpressed by politics and politicians and political slogans with each successive election, yet I remain devoted to the system of government that has allowed the USA to continue peacefully for nearly 250 years.  Currently I live in Utah, and our state legislature designated September as Constitution month.  We’re encouraged to read and study it, and I have LOVED doing just that.

I planned to start a quilt  to commemorate Constitution Day.  I still love my Lucky Lone Star quilt (pattern available here).  My recent Anthem experimenting is also becoming something bigger.  But the more I thought about it, the more ideas I had.  Should I make an album quilt?  Use my vintage linens?  Make something universal, or make something that tells the story of my own family lines in this country?  Every question triggered a half dozen ideas and now I’m swimming in them!

We celebrate 250 years since the Declaration of Independence was signed in 2026, which means there are important anniversaries fast approaching.  Today I pulled out all my red, white and blue fabrics because I’d like to make more patriotic quilts.  I’m also planning to sew them mostly from fabric I already have.  I’m planning lots of patriotic sewing between now and then!

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I finished my Sherbet Heart Quilt in time for Valentine’s Day snuggling, and we thoroughly enjoyed using it.  My favorite part of this quilt is the color.  It feels like being in a candy store!


I made this quilt using my Scrappy Heart Quilt Pattern (you can find the free tutorial and pattern here ) but this time I used all solids, including a peachy pink as the background.  I added pinks, purples, oranges and reds to make the hearts.  Many of these colors come from the Tula Pink solids collection, with additions from my stash.


I decided to quilt this myself in an allover pattern, and settled on a clam shell design.  This is my first effort at using an acrylic ruler while quilting on my Juki.  I made a lot of mistakes, and there are a lot of wonky clam shells in this quilt, but I also learned a lot and improved as I went on.  No doubt I’ll try this again in the future.


I pulled from my stash for the backing, and this Amy Butler print above won out.  I supplemented with an orange dot print along one side.  The colors of the backing complement the front perfectly.  I used more of the background print for the binding.


This quilt is fun to observe as the light changes through the day.  The subtle changes in color are beautiful.  It’s fun to revisit a design and see how it changes with different design decisions.  I’m enjoying sewing more with solids, and this quilt was a great way to do it!

Welcome to Week Two of the Lone Star Tree Skirt Sew Along!  If you’re just joining us, it’s not too late.  The pattern is available here and you can jump in anytime.  We’re going to finish our tree skirts well before Christmas!

Last week’s video covered sewing the fabrics into strips and then cutting them into strips of diamonds.  This week we will sew the strips into eight large diamonds to make a star so BE CAREFUL  in handling your fabric.

You have a lot of bias edges and don’t want to stretch them!
Once again, the video is in two parts.  In them you will find all my tips for marking, pinning, and sewing.  I love this step because the beauty of the lone star begins to emerge.  Here we go!

The first video covers marking and pinning your strips together.

https://youtu.be/gTHXps6lmVs The second video covers sewing the strips together into large diamonds.

https://youtu.be/aZxREu6EnfU There you have it, eight large diamonds!


When the diamonds are sewn together, play with them to see how they look if you flip them around.  I’m planning to put the red diamonds in the center of my star, which will look like this:


But if I wanted to flip it around, it would look like this:


You can see that the star looks very different when I switch them!  Last week I shared photos of an unfinished mod lone star as I deliberated on which way to sew it together.  I’d like to focus more on value in the future; I’m sure I will learn a lot!

We will meet back here next Monday for week three of the sew along.  Please share your progress with the hashtags #lonestartreeskirt and #hopefulhomemaker.  I’ll be watching for them!

Remember that all posts for this project can be found on the Lone Star Tree Skirt Sew Along page.

Have a great week, and happy sewing!
Jennifer