A Quilt for Comfort

The comfort quilt for Pulse is finished and on it's way to Orlando!

I know some of you are making blocks or tops or quilts for this project because I've seen your blogposts and Instagram posts.  For those who haven't heard about this, the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild is spearheading the collection and they directed interested quilters to Allison at www.cluckclucksew.com who has a tutorial for the heart block in a variety of sizes.

As you can see I did a mix of the sizes.

I auditioned a few prints for the borders but anything with enough color was too kitschy so I settled on a rainbow piano key border using random width strips from the cutting scraps for the hearts.

I assembled them into groups of the six colors and rather than a rainbow order, I paired them by their opposite position on the color wheel -- green next to red, yellow next to blue, orange next to purple -- to get more contrast and sparkle. 

I made the strips 1" longer than needed to allow for wobbles and trimmed them towards the end of process.

I made four more small hearts to turn the corners of the borders and sashed them on what will be the outside edges of each corner -- this is a close-up of the upper left corner heart.

I added a border of the background color and then the pieced borders doing the sides first.

Then I added the background border across the top and bottom from edge to edge as you see below. 

The corner hearts were added to each end of the top and bottom borders with a strip of background aligned to match the side borders.  That took some fiddling and ripping but it was worth it. 

Extending the background border all the way to the edges of the quilt helped float the corner hearts and gives the quilt a unified look.

Simple quilting finished it off.  It is "raining" more hearts onto the surface of the quilt.

I alternated straight lines with curvy lines vertically through the central part of the quilt to maintain a gentle look.

The vertical straight lines have various size hearts inserted randomly. 

A heart is an easy shape to "draw" with your needle.  Once the heart was stitched, I continued on by stitching down through the heart.

Here's one of the 10" hearts with the alternating lines and the random hearts. 

In this photo you can see the alternating wavy and straight lines of the border as I stitch down the last 6" of the binding.

Choosing the binding fabric was probably the most difficult part of making the quilt because of all the color in the quilt and the stripped border.  After making a blue binding which clashed terribly with the backing, I settled on this bright print which was laying on the cutting table for a second Pulse quilt top.

It's been fun to watch the quilts roll in to the Orlando MQG -- they are probably past the 200 mark at this point -- and their Instagram hashtag, #quiltsforpulse is climbing steadily toward 3500 posts.

The Dallas and Ft. Worth Modern Quilt Guilds have started a collection of the heart blocks for #quiltsforpeace -- blue prints with white backgrounds, same tutorial from www.cluckclucksew.com and you can get to the guild website HERE for more information.

Quilters do such a good job of sharing their work and bringing comfort to others!!

Now if we could just get politicians to be so positive.

Mary Huey

Linking up to the third quarter 2016 Finish Along Link-up HERE!!

Fun Without Focus

As I've mentioned before, I'm easily distracted and it seems to be more prevalent during summer.

This weekend, I started quilting my wonderful bird quilt made with blocks from the creative member of the 2015 Stash Bee Hive #7.

I'm keeping it simple with wavy meandering parallel vertical lines.  I had hoped to be ready to bind by today, but . . . . . .

the milkweed outside the window at the quilting machine came into bloom.

That means butterflies!!  This fritillary was not easy to photograph.

But the yellow swallowtail was very accommodating.

I bounced back and forth between the machine quilting and organizing a border for the heart quilt to be donated to the Orlando MQG.  Have you checked out the #quiltsforpulse hashtag on Instagram yet?  Over 2000 posts and some very creative inspiring ideas!!

The top is set together and I've been piecing together a "piano-key" border.  Since I am using up scraps, I cut 6" strip rather than make long strip sets.  I laid out my stacks strips in an "opposites attract" order rather than a rainbow order.

The strips are random widths and a bit longer than needed to allow for trimming.

I like the way it's coming -- there will be a scrappy border of background fabric before the pieced border and I think some hearts in the corners for a simpler transition.

(Check out those Hexathon blocks in waiting down the left side of the design wall!!)

Then this arrived in my in-box -- I was part of Nicole's test group for her new pattern!!

Wicked Weaver!

Everything else stopped.  Since I had so much going on, I took the simple road with the fabric pull and used the texture from this Kaffe print for the body of a common garden spider.

I didn't take any progress pics but can report that I am pleased with the results.  This is the smallest of the three sizes included in the pattern.  I was impressed with the detail and accuracy of the design. 

Look at how those legs align?!?   

Check out the #wickedweaverpattern hashtag on Instagram -- you can do that from HERE on your computer!

I hadn't done paper piecing for quite a long time -- was delighted to find all my tools for it in the right place and to recall the "how-to's" from the past.  Want the pattern for yourself? 

Just go HERE!!  It's fun.

 

Back to the birds and the hearts!

 

Mary Huey

 

 

 

 

 

 



Hearts for Pulse

It was at least 15 years ago that I joined a group at the local community college to work through The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron about "unblocking creativity" that I first encountered the idea of not paying attention to "breaking news".  One of the chapters in the book urged us to go one week without reading or listening to the news.  It was a challenge at first but gradually it has become a habit for me.

 

I've discovered I feel calmer without the constant negative pounding of minor "news" and when there is really important news, it always comes to my attention.  So I wasn't the first to know about the massacre in Orlando this past weekend, but I knew about it by Monday morning via Instagram and a friend who shared the initiative of the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild.

 

Perhaps you are also aware of this initiative by now.  The guild is gathering quilts filled with hearts to comfort those who have been impacted by this tragedy.

They directed us to cluckclucksews.com tutorial for simple pieced heart blocks.

My first eight were on the design wall Tuesday morning.

As I stitched, I thought of my long time teaching mentor, Mary Ellen Hopkins.  She introduced me and dozens of other teachers to this "stitch and flip" technique which she dubbed "connector corners" as a way to create snowball blocks.  Over the years, this idea has filtered out through the quilting world and most are no longer aware of it's origins.

 

Mary Ellen was so excited by the concept that it resulted in five books published between 1990 and 2000.  She would be so into this project!!

There are the first heart blocks, on page 41 of Connecting Up.  These original hearts have a diagonal orientation but they used those stitch and flip squares to create a rounded look.

I started in my scrap bag looking for mono-color prints in a rainbow of cheerful colors.

Construction of the blocks lends itself to chain piecing and once I've finished digging around for the fabric, I can cut and piece a half dozen in an hour.

The tutorial at cluckclucksew.com includes a chart of sizes from 4" to 10" so I made the largest heart I could from each scrap.

Once I had depleted the usable scraps, I turned to the stash and focused on the largest size hearts.

I had hoped to be farther this morning than a first layout draft but stuff happens (as you know).

One modification I made was to cut large triangles using my Marti Michell Multi-size Half-Square Triangle Ruler -- stretches small bits of background fabric and eliminates new scraps for the bag!!

Before I left the studio last evening, I did clump together the six smallest hearts which I will merge into three blocks. 

I pulled all the medium size hearts and will frame those with background strips so all the blocks are the same size.  The background fabrics are pulled and I spritzed them and left them hanging over the ironing board to shed wrinkles so the start-up ironing today will go more quickly!

 I did the math so that I don't have to think at the beginning of today's studio session -- just iron, cut, and start stitching!

I love that I can be part of this project even though I live 1045 miles away!

I love how quickly the quilting community has supported this project.  The Orlando Modern Quilt Guild initiated the first Instagram post on Monday and as of this moment (4 days later), there are 678 posts with the #quiltsforpulse hashtag. 

 

Not on Instagram? -- HERE is a link to the guild's blog and the information about the project or go to their FACEBOOK page to see this project come together day by day.

They are accepting blocks, quilt tops, and finished quilts so all of us that wish can easily participate.  Just another example of the good things we do with our stitching every chance we get!!

 

Bravo, quilters!!

 

Mary Huey