I’m having a bash at a LeMoyne star for a placemat. My parents have had new windows put in and the new windowsills scratch easily so Mum suggested I make some mats for them, which pleases me greatly as it’s nice to have an excuse to try something new and to use up some of my stash. Trying out new things on a small project is ideal. So I browsed through Linda Clements’ ‘Quilter’s Bible’ and settled on the LeMoyne pattern. I really want to try something with shapes other than half-square triangles and flying geese, but am a bit daunted by templates. I did use templates for the farmer’s wife cushion 9-block cushion cover I made a couple of Christmasses ago and it was easily the hardest thing I’ve done in quilting terms!

This was me yesterday, trying out a few different combinations (not including the corner pieces. I decided on the one without pink, though I may use it for the binding. I will use the other pieces I cut for another place mat, to be decided.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I cut out the pieces using a rotary cutter and a multi-size perspex diamond template, though I think I made a mistake cutting out the green ones because I thought straight grain could be either horizontal or vertical, but the first strip I cut (the plain green) was really stretchy which made it hard to cut around the template accurately; I cut the patterned fabrics on the grain that runs parallel to the selvedge and that was much easier. I don’t have a right-angled triangle template so cut squares then cut them in half diagonally.

I’m sewing the units of 2xdiamond + 1 triangle using the inset seam method as explained in the Quilter’s Bible, though I’m confused by it also saying to offset the seams as I don’t see how when the point has to go where the point where the two diamonds meet, but I’ve gone ahead and hope it makes sense later.

So far I’ve sewn together the long edges of two sets of diamonds (it was three but one wasn’t accurate enough and then I saw I’d sewn it with the wrong edges together for the pattern anyway) and have attached the triangle to one. This is it when I had the last seam of the triangle left to sew on.

When I finished the unit I found I’d made the half-square triangles too big, they line up with the edges on the diamond before they’re sewn together, but not afterwards! Glad I only made one set.

This is the finished unit, front and back. It’s bulky where the points meet and you can see some stitches at the point, but it seems okay… have to wait until I’ve done some more to be sure.