Hugs and Kisses Blog Hop--Day 5: Heartfelt Love

What an exciting journey it has been getting ready for my very first blog hop! I'm so excited to have been chosen by Madame Samm, who has organized the Hugs & Kisses Blog Hop, and thanks to our cheerleader for the week, Jane from Jane's Fabrics & Quilts. Thank you both for widening the world of quilting blogs for me with this opportunity! Here's today's schedule. I hope you'll visit these blogs and cheer on the other Friday participants.

Friday February 15th


Why Knot Kwilt

NitaDances

Sew Darn Quilt

Quilt-N-Queen

Fiddlesticks and Humility

Stitchin Therapy 

Moose Stash Quilting

 Gypsy Dreamer Quilts -- You are here!

Color My World

Sew We Quilt

It's been an week of lovely new projects being revealed each day. For those who wish to go back and see what has been revealed all week, the full schedule can be found by following this Hugs & Kisses button...

And now on to my heartfelt journey... It all started when I received the email informing me that I would be included in the Hugs & Kisses blog hop. EXCITED!!!! My first thought was to find all of my pinks and reds that have been bagged up and traveled across the country with me from California to Kansas last year when I moved. This would, indeed, be a scrappy project made entirely out of my stash. I knew they were lurking, I just wasn't sure where. After some hunting and sorting through boxes and bags, I found four baggies of reds and pinks left over from various projects.

 

As I started sorting them out, I found there were strips of various widths in several fabrics I wanted to include. I also had a lovely red on white fat quarter that I thought would be a perfect backing if I could keep the project to that size. I started pulling strips out of the pile, cutting the wider ones down and cutting a few more out of various scraps so they were all 2" wide, and began piecing a heart together. I also found a small baggie full of wings that had been cut off of red and white flying geese from a project I made four years ago. I was sure I'd use them someday. And someday finally came! Woohoo! These were little triangles, so I worked hard at getting them sewn together with just an 1/8" seam--much more and there wouldn't have been anything left of the blocks to use!

And then came the tedious task of pressing all of those miniature seams open! That took a whole evening by itself, just pressing all those little half-square triangles. I finished up with 32 1-1/4" red and white blocks to incorporate somewhere into my project.

Next I went back to sewing the 2" strips together to finish the central pieced heart. I got a little crazy adding strips and actually had three more rows than I wanted, making it an elongated heart that just didn't look right. So, I took out my ripper and started removing rows, which was more complicated than I had planned since they were added by units of two. Another night spent playing with the design. And three rows of pieced blocks for another someday project were added to the scrap bag that doesn't seem to be getting emptier. Hmmm... How does that happen?

Finally, I had the central heart done, had added the framing strips and mini-border, and then started playing with all those little red and white blocks. Amazingly there was an even number of them, so I sewed them together to make mock-flying geese by seaming the red sides together, again with 1/8" seams, and then made two strips of mock-flying geese to put on the sides. 

In one of the bags I had found some vintage Valentine fabric that I had received in a class scrap exchange and there was just enough to fussy cut the boy and girl in the hearts with accompanying words to add to the side borders.

I configured them with the boys on the bottom and girls on the top, one side with Cupid's arrows (the geese) pointing up from the boy to the girl and the other side with Cupid's arrows (the geese) pointing down from the girl to the boy. I loved the effect and vintage look! Adding the red hearts on pink border was the finishing touch to piecing the top.

Then it was on to figuring out how I wanted to quilt it. I went through my EQ Quilting Designs and found a beautiful feathered heart and, after several test prints, got the sizing right to fit perfectly within the pieced central heart. I selected a beautiful medium orchid #2479 from the Aurifil 50 Silk Hearts collection that blended well with the patchwork heart, and continued with the white Aurifil 50 that I had used for piecing to quilt the background cross-hatching and to use in the bobbin.

I pinned on my foundation paper pattern and started stitching on the lines.

 

Once the stitching was complete, then came the fun (not always) process of removing the foundation paper. Luckily my FMQ practice is paying off and I'm getting smaller, more uniform stitches that make it easier for the paper to tear away without deforming the stitches. Once complete, the center of the heart was a little puffy, so I added three free motion ribbon tendrils to the center, coming up from the bottom center of the feathered heart, as well as a little spiral stamen coming out of the tulip bottom into the point of the heart.  

I continued on by cross-hatching the white on white pin dot background around the heart and used the medium orchid again to quilt a lovely heart chain stencil around the 1" finished borders. The final step was binding it with the same pink as the outer border.

And finally, here it is, Heartfelt Love, a new table topper ready for Valentine's Day!

The little cottage tea cup & saucer is one of my favorites, along with the wooden heart candle holders that my dad made years ago. Now if I could only find the candles that I'm pretty sure made it from California to Kansas! I wonder what box they got left in? The little glass heart votive holders are the final touch and my dining room table is ready for company. Oh wait, where's the bowl of Valentine's M&Ms?!? Oops! I ate them all! Guess I need to make another trip to the store before Valentine's Day.

It has been such great fun creating this project for the Hugs & Kisses blog hop! I hope you have enjoyed the week of great projects! I know I have!

As others have mentioned, I, too, enjoy making things with hearts and have a few other projects to share...

This folded point potholder was made from a lovely pinks & reds charm pack as part of my daughter Ali's Christmas gift. Perfect to dress up her kitchen on Valentine's Day or anytime.

This scrappy heart table topper was made to decorate the dining table at my dad's in California and was awarded a 2nd place red ribbon at the Contra Costa County Fair in 2011. Today I would have mixed up the 4-patch hearts and made it much scrappier!

And finally, I have to brag about my 9-year-old granddaughter Jordyn, who did the LOVE cross stitch in the center and then selected fabrics that I helped cut into strips and she sewed together herself to make a pillow cover--her first ever sewing project! Each time she visits, this is the pillow she brings with her. It's so wonderful when children LOVE what they make!

Thank you again to Madame Samm and Jane for sponsoring and cheering us on this week for the wonderful Hugs & Kisses blog hop!

More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz