The Evolving Hearts Quilt

I took the pattern for this 20-inch block and upsized it so the largest piece would fit on 18-inch-wide freezer paper. The resulting block will finish to about 28-1/4 inches.

Then I pieced 16 of the smaller hearts to go on the four sides.

I had drafted a corner heart pattern, of which I made up four. But when I had them all arranged on my design wall, I did not like the corner hearts. Because of the redrafting, they have a different silhouette which bother me.

I have drafted a new corner heart pattern, which I will be sewing up later this week.
Stay tuned!

Big Heart

Some time ago, I took this block, enlarged it to 20" x 20", printed it out and taped the pieces together. This weekend, I finally sewed together strips from my scrap bag to make the center block for a quilt.

If I do another one (and I probably will), instead of paper-piecing, I think I will try using freezer paper. Wrangling a 20-inch-square paper foundation took some doing.

Not only is the heart pieced, but the background sections are as well.

I had a bunch of equilateral triangles and half-triangles left over from another project a few years ago. With so many fabrics in the heart, it seemed like it would be "too much" to have the background be scrappy also. But piecing the background from leftover bits seemed appropriate.

I used up most of the triangles, but I was able to find more of the same print online, even though I bought in some three years ago. I remembered it was from a fabric line designed by Minick and Simpson, was able to determine that they design for Moda, tracked down the name of the line, and ordered some here.

Next, I'll be making smaller heart blocks, also strip-pieced, to go around the large heart.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Have I mentioned before, how I love hearts? I guess I have!

A couple months ago, I was looking at the various red-and-white fabrics that have collected over time, looked at the calendar, and thought, I should make something for Valentine's Day!

Thus, the Sweet Hearts Pillow, pattern available at my Craftsy store.

Here's a detail of the center block. Hearts within hearts!

In Progress

 At any one time, I  am working on several projects. I'm like that in most areas of my life — I usually have at least two books that I'm reading, if not three or four; at work, I used to have several projects on my desk at various stages of completion. That works for me; sometimes I'm in the mood for knitting, sometimes for quilting, sometimes for embroidery. Sometimes I want to work on something that requires more attention, sometimes I want something that I can do automatically without thinking about it too much.

Here are my current projects.

A few days ago, I finished sewing on the binding for this little wall hanging. It is the same pattern as this one, but in a different colorway.

This is my latest hand pillow. I finished appliquéing the hands last night. This afternoon I will fuse on the hearts.

Out in my studio, I have one waiting to be assembled into a pillow, and I already have one waiting in the wings.

My silk sock is coming along nicely. Only ten or fifteen rounds remain on the leg; then I can get started on the heel flap.

 

Over Christmas break, I cut the pieces for the blocks for a quilt that I hope to make available at my Craftsy store. It is based on this quilt, but will be larger and have Maple Leaf blocks in four sizes.

And last, but not least, there's this little quilt that I just felt like doing.

The red hearts still need their blanket stitch appliqué. I don't know what its eventual destiny will be, but it was fun to mix and match all the red and white fabrics.

Using Up Scraps

After making the blocks for this quilt, I had a whole bunch of little leftover pieces, each with about a 1-3/4" square of usable fabric.

I pieced a heart out of dark squares first. Then I filled in around in with light squares. I purposefully did not align the seam lines between the dark and light sections, and also between different rows in the light sections. I like the “make-do” quality it lends.

The heart section ended up being rectangular, rather than square. No problem. Some time ago, my mom gave me an old rectangular pillow form, about 12 x 15 inches. If I added some borders to the pieced heart, it would be perfect.

This morning, I sewed up the covered cording and the overlapping back pieces and put it all together.

Hearts All Around

This is a quilt I made a fair number of years ago. It represents one of my few forays into traditional appliqué.

Hearts are a favorite motif of mine. Around the house are several pieces featuring hearts:

A wedding present from my sister

A small wall hanging I made several years ago, using a quilting pattern published in Quilter's Newsletter

A tole-painted heart by my aunt Marlys

An early heart-in-hand pillow I made for my parents, featuring my then-7-year-old daughter’s hands


Anyway, the hearts in the quilt pictured above were fussy-cut from the leftover fabric from a jumper I made for my daughter when she was around the age of 6. I may even have kept the dress. Somewhere there is a box with some of her clothes from back-in-the-day that are just too cute or precious to give to Goodwill. A knitted baby sweater. Knitted booties and a cap. A baby blanket.

Here are a couple close-ups of the quilt. You can still see the pencil lines marking the quilting pattern, because the quilt has never been washed.