Quilt of Hearts

So here we are, just a mere 3 days to go.  Kids are officially on a 2 week hiatus.  I have mailed off my last client quilt of the year.  You'd think I'd have plenty of time to do "whatever".  Right?!?

If only.  My mom took them all off yesterday to lunch and a movie and to a couple shops to kill time. I stayed home and wrapped, and wrapped, and then a little more wrapping!  I am slowly plugging forward on two 2015 (hopefully!) show quilts that are silk.  One is oh so close to being ready to block.  Next week I believe, then it can be bound.  My hope is to have a Mid-Atlantic entry so it must be done quickly!  The other quilt is 82" square and is requiring some pick out, some applique after quilting, which is no easy task.  I am trying to be patient with this one, telling myself that having it be good is better than having it done.  Easier said than done though.  I will put it back on the frame for 3-5 days of finish quilting when kids return to school.  Then it is finito.  Promise.   There is an article due in 2 weeks that I finished up this past weekend.  And I am plugging away on literature to pass out at my 4 classes I am teaching at MQX in April.    Here's a glimpse at a couple of the samples I am working on...top one is for a wide borders class and the orange is for Fearless Feathers.  I still have 3 more borders to quilt out at some point!  It is always something, I tell you!...and then there's that "secret" project that I just can't leak anything about yet...good golly do I need a vacation!

So let me show you a few pics of this very sweet hand appliqued 20's-30's replica fabrics quilt.  There were 144 heart blocks if I remember right!  The edge will be trimmed square before binding.

 The squares are 5", so this is a rather large quilt.  My goal was to do something within the blocks to create a secondary pattern.  I also endeavored to use 2 colors of thread - white and some other.  I needed to limit the starts and stops for the integrity of the quilt.  I used Glide threads - white and a medium-toned lavender.  I layed several colors out on the colored blocks, and the lavender blended away with more of them than any other color.  The fly in the ointment were the yellow, red and navy blue squares, as they are such stark opposites in tone.  If a thread blended with one, it stood out like a sore thumb on the other.  I just was NOT using 8 different colors on the colored thread.  I believed that one color would unite the multiple colors better.

 We have a QD wool batting giving these hearts a great loft.  I chose 4-5 different designs, equally spaced throughout the white squares.  Here's a few...feathers, swirls, peacocks, etc.  On the colored squares, I did a meandering ribbon.  It is dense enough to pop the hearts, but not overkill.  Every heart is ditched, and has the swirl on it.  I am a free-hand quilter, and these are not marked.  But I think the swirls look amazing on 144 hearts!

 The quilt is unusual the way the borders are done.  They aren't really defined borders, just solid squares.  And the top and bottom have an additional row of these solid squares.  I chose to create the feeling of a border with the quilting.  There are 1/2" parallel lines and feathers.

 The border shows a little more on this shot of the backside.

It's pretty and I hope Anne likes it when it arrives on Christmas eve!  Until then, I am signing off. Hope you all have a great holiday.  If you have quilting needs in the new year, I'd be happy to take them.  Joy!