Your fabric choice is very important in these quilts. You want to create visual texture so gather an assortment of different type prints such as large florals, small florals, stripes, checks and geometrics. Include light, medium and dark color value fabrics so you have contrast and you can tell where one fabric ends and the other one starts. Clean out that scrapbook and swap with friends... this is a great quilt for that.

Your other mood choice might be a "pink" quilt or a "blue" quilt.  Go with those fabrics... all shades and textures of one quilt will make a great monochromatic color quilt.  Perhaps a large print border to set off the more plain diamonds?

A scrap quilt is a scrap quilt and you use up what you have, just toss it all in there... as long as you have  contrast between the adjoining fabrics. I've never seen one yet that I didn't like. However, you may want a formal color selection. You can use up the smaller pieces in the points of the diamonds, and the longer pieces in the wider center of the diamonds.  You can have an *order* to your fabrics or very random.  It is quilt with a lot of possibilities.	Decide which mood you want to your quilt to be. It may be a child's quilt based around a character print, you may want a Christmas quilt in red and green holiday prints, how about an Amish style quilt in vibrant solids with a black background? Reproduction fabrics make your quilt look like it came from the 30's or from the 1800's. Black and white modern for the younger generation, Victorian for the romantics, plaids for the country folk... capture a tropical island, the sunset or the southwest desert. There are so many choices, I'm so excited... no wonder Faeb make so many of these!
Pick'in the color combinations...
. . . For a more formal quilt, you may want to choose a main color and an accent and go from there. An easy way to do this is to find a large scale geometric or floral print that you are attracted to. In most instances, if you like that print, it is because you like the color combinations in it, even though you don't "see" all the individual colors one by one at first glance. Now, begin to pull your colors for your quilt from this print. Don't do "itty bitty matchy-uppy", a shade off will make it more interesting. You don't even have to use the large print in your quilt, you may just love the color scheme of it. Sometimes you are lucky to get small dots along the selvage of the fabric. These are the dye colors used in the print and make a great color picking tool. Can you imagine this quilt... teal green, purple, electric blue, deep rose or maroon and black with a hint of yellow?
Trust your instincts. You may start to choose colors then panic and ask someone else what they think... in most cases they won't think like you and will sway you in "their" direction. In the end you will just be more confused. Your quilt shop owner can help you pick but the choices will be to "her" taste. Then you get this book on the color wheel... ughhhhhhh!... confusion city! Trust me... trust your own instincts and so what if no one else likes it... you do and that is all that matters.

Cut your strips in a range from from 1 to 3 inches. Faye cuts most of them 1 1/2", 1 3/4" and 2". Cut different widths from each of your fabrics. You can cut crosswise or lengthwise on yard goods or scraps.

You can cut them each the same width *BUT* when you go to sew the star points together and the stripes don't match here and there it will look bad, ....well, you know. If you cut them varying widths they will just go together *wherever* everywhere and it will look great.

There is not a formula for amounts of scraps here. If you have a small star you will use a little and if you have a huge star, you will use a lot... nuf said! You can however, figure out how much background and border fabric you will need at: How big a star do you want to make?

As for the setting squares and triangles, after you make your paper diamond template for your size quilt and measure the side of one of the diamonds, you can  easily  figure out how much fabric you need for the squares and triangles for your size quilt. Hey, it's not that hard. Get out that calculator and figure it out... determine the size of the squares you need to cut and then figure how much fabric it will take to do it.
 

Main Introduction Page	2) How big a star	3) Fabric choices	4)You need a 45 degree diamond  4a) If you have a 45 degree diamond 4b) draft using a protractor. 4c) draft  using a compass. 4d)  .pdf format printout	5) Making a star point in any length
6)  Sew      Page 1     Page 2	7) figure size of background squares and triangles	8) Sewing together star points/ setting in the background	9) Adding Borders 9a) floating blocks	10) *really easy* Lone Star quilt.