The intricately beautiful Lone Star quilt design.

The Lone Star quilt block, also called Star of Bethlehem and various other names, features a large central star of diamond-shaped pieces of fabric forming the points of the star from the center out. Typically fabrics are placed so as to create rings of color radiating around the center star.

Lone Star quilt pattern

This pattern was reprinted in the Kansas City Star newspaper with the added the headline: ’The Lone Star Challenges the Most Ambitious Quilter.’ The Lone Star pattern is indeed not for the faint of heart. Based on a single deceptively simple diamond shape, this quilt block requires patience, accuracy, precision piecing and the skillful hands of an experienced quilter.

Lone Star Quilt, by Loudoun's Almedia Gibson Lumm

When featured as a single large medallion block the effect of the Lone Star pattern is dramatic, as in the quilt above. This stunning piece from the collection of the DAR Museum was made by Almedia Gibson Lumm, wife of Samuel Dillion Lumm, of the town of Mountville in central Loudoun.

Lone Star quilt patternLone Star Quilt, by Loudoun's Almedia Gibson Lumm