heARTS Creations

Prepping for a week of quilting away, I designed a rag quilt for a soon to be neighbor baby boy. I do love flannel rag quilts. Mine is actually my favorite couch quilt – soft, warm. cuddly and so easy to wash. The quilt gets better after each washing!

So unlike me, I completely sketched out the design with measurements and placements. The older I get, the more difficult I find it to “wing it!” The seams will be 1/2 inch which will make this a nice sized baby quilt.

There are four layers to each block: The backing, top layer, then a double layer of a diamond, circle or square. The bottom full squares will get clipped, then the top double layer will get clipped. There is no need for batting as the four layers makes it a nice weight and all the clipping will make it super fluffy!

There are three different animals featured in the circle blocks: lion, elephant and giraff. I think they are SO cute!

And here is the whole layout. All the layers of each block are pinned together and numbered. I will now be able to pull each block out of the project box and sew. I’ll clip as I go because waiting ’till the end makes for a very sore hand with all that clipping!

This will be an easy, fairly mindless project to work on away from home. The only difficult part will be having to wait until I get home to wash and dry it to reveal its fluffiness!

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to all mothers and to all the children celebrating their mothers!

A while back I received a box absolutely packed full with quilt tops from Trish in Connecticut. There is so much work in these along with all the fabric and threads used. One of the larger quilt tops I passed on to a friend who is heading up an effort to donate ten quilt tops to the local Hospice House being built a couple of miles down the road from me. These quilts will stay at the Hospice House. The quilts I have been passing on to Hospice go directly to the patients. Both are great causes.

Feast your eyes on these – just amazing! (Please pardon – they are not pressed. That will be done prior to quilting)

The last two will need a border added to make them just a bit bigger which is an easy task. They will all be backed with fleece and quilted. When? Good question! It’s no secret that my quilting skills are not the best, but eventually it will all get done. Thank you Trish – from the bottom of my heart!

Oh how moved I am when I receive donations for Hospice quilts. Recently Julie donated this pretty lap quilt – pieced, quilted and bound! There’s no doubt this will bring joy to someone in care.

Such a fun collection of prints. The center block of squares with circles quilted around each quilt is just perfect.

There was no avoiding shadows the day I took this pick. The backing is as cheerful as the quilt top and the black and white binding is perfect!

Just think of the comfort and joy this will bring someone. A handful of donations will be making their way to Hospice very soon!

My goal for 2020 and beyond was to reduce my Works in Progress. I define those as a project that has been started either by cutting or cutting and sewing. A project is a pattern and fabric sitting together with nothing having been done to it. As you can see by my listing below, I have greatly reduced my WIPs. Four of the remaining projects have a great amount of handstitching to be done, so they won’t be a quick finish.

I would love to concentrate on the lap quilt I am quilting with big stitch, but I have encountered problems with that as of late. Usually I work on it in the evening when I’m tired and it slows me down. The last several years my hand cramps when I’ve done some hand stitching and I have to stop and rest often. AND, the biggest problem: Callie my cat hops on my lap and is definitely not in favor of my stitching. I find it so peaceful and comforting to have a cat in my lap, so I never say no to her. The quilt will get done eventually.

Lollypop Tree quilt is all together except for the outside border which will have many appliqued circles on it. Time. Now that I’m this far along on this quilt, I will do some of the applique work during the day as my sewing on the machine for WIPs has decreased mightily.

My log cabin quilt is at a total stand still. I’ve run out of the dark grey and have been unable to match it. It’s quite a dilemma and I’m just not sure how I will remedy the situation. There is already so much work into it that I know I want to go forward, it just won’t be right away.

Starting a new WIP: I have two kits in the wings. I don’t usually do kits, but there was no way for me to do these quilts without a kit – too much variation in fabric. The first one I will do is a plaid Christmas quilt and it has 30 fabrics! I’m going to need a couple of uninterrupted days to get this one cut. Mistakes just won’t be an option!

For the first time I’m also keeping track of fabric purchases. I have a typical quilter’s huge stash of fabrics, and my goal is to reduce it. Putting it down on paper should help to make me accountable!

Absolutely NOT my fault! A few weeks ago I made the above block for a group project. It’s Kaffe stripes and a solid thrown in. I cut one inch strips and made four identical 8 inch blocks and sewed them together with the black and white in the center. We were to submit a 16″ block finished. I loved it! And, as it happens, I have lots and lots of scrap Kaffe and Kaffe Collective fabrics which includes Brandon Mably and Phillip Jacobs.

Off to the drawing board I went. I had to do this for me. My blocks are smaller – 12 inch finished. I pulled out my scraps and large pieces and began to sort and choose. Such fun! The above pic is of a joyful and organized mess. I put the strings for each individual square on a paper plate which is a trick I learned from a friend at a retreat. It works really well for some of my projects.

I sewed the one inch strips onto a lightweight stabilizer which keeps the block from getting wonky as can happen with such thin strips. I didn’t sew the black and white fabrics onto the corners until I placed all the squares onto the design wall, as the intersecting blocks needed to have matching black & white.

Oh the fun I had sewing these! It was just the burst of joy I needed as I was tiring of the sewing I had been doing. I had all the blocks sewn, squared and trimmed in three days!! A couple of borders are needed. I searched my stash and have come up with my first choice. Tune in to see.

Do you have squirrels in your studio waiting to attack? Don’t fight it – feed your creativity!