HeartStrings Quilt Project

Memorial Day

Mary Johnson — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:30:20 +0000

Remember, reflect, and honor those that have given their life in service to their country

Starting Friday we’ll be hosting a virtual sew along during the Memorial Day weekend. Our primary project will be using brown centers to make HeartStrings blocks for quilts for veterans and wounded soldiers but you can also choose to make RWB blocks or pillowcases to present the quilts.

Please see the previous post for details.

Memorial Day Sew Along

Mary Johnson — Fri, 03 May 2013 00:44:03 +0000

May 24 through the 27th we will be doing a sew along. Using brown centers, we’ll make blocks and tops for quilts for guys ( wounded soldiers and veterans as well as other guys who could use a comfort quilt)

Stephanie is always ahead of the crowd and just posted two quilts using browns.

This one doesn’t have brown centers but I love the browns she did use in it.

Blocks that are sent in for group quilts should use the guidelines and substitute brown for the red or blue centers.

HeartStrings Block Guidelines

If you’re completing a full set of 48 blocks or completing the top, you could chose blues or greens or any other “guy” color you’d like.
You could also send in RWB blocks — see those guidelines here.

And a third option to sew along with us would be to make pillowcases to send to Alycia for presenting Quilts of Valor. They don’t need to be Red/white/blue but I’d focus on manly!

Pillowcase instructions.

Won’t you join in and sew along with us?!

Wrapping up

Mary Johnson — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 16:20:04 +0000

The Maine sew-in is over and as usual very successful. We ended up with a stack of finished quilts and pillowcases and many others are in process. We’ll meet again in September and finish up even more.

Bev, who coordinates the sew-in every year worked on pillowcases for Operation Military Kids to be donated through the Legion Auxiliary. She completed this stack and prepped another larger stack for sewing.

You can see more photos from the sew-in at the link below.

April 2013 Maine Sew-in photo album

Maine sew-in

Mary Johnson — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 01:55:45 +0000

We started working today and will continue though the weekend. Shannon Fabrics donated two large bolts of their minky Cuddle fabric and I can’t tell you how soft, warm, and cozy the HeartStrings quilts we’re backing with it are turning out!

Brenda pulled tops to coordinate, Rebecca bound

I tied …

The first one completed, more to follow!

WI/MN sew-in

Mary Johnson — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 22:46:13 +0000

Kathy and Rhonda hosted another successful sew-in.

20 participants
Blocks were made
Tops were pieced
Finished quilts were distributed to Kathy and Teresa for donation.
Finished tops were distributed to various longarm quilters for finishing.
Birthdays were celebrated!

Marsha traveled the farthest … all the way from California. The rest of us were from WI and MN.

See all the photos from today.

Upcoming sew-ins

Mary Johnson — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 06:32:46 +0000

April 13, 2013 in Roberts, WI
The week of April 22nd in Yarmouth, ME

Spring Green

Mary Johnson — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 07:43:54 +0000

It looks like I’m not the only one working with green in anticipation of spring. Cher’s HeartStrings quilt is also very spring-like.

Laura Jean’s latest top

Mary Johnson — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 05:59:11 +0000

I love the yellow in this one.

Stringing in Nebraska

Mary Johnson — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 05:19:23 +0000

Sara is a coordinator for QOV in Nebraska and wrote to me during our New Year’s sew along. She wasn’t able to sew that weekend but she invited friends over to try and empty out her string bins. While they made a LOT of progress, they didn’t manage to use them all up.

She wrote

We had 8 sewers and we sewed our brains out for 2 days (everyone went home at night, of course). As you predicted, I felt as though no dent was made in the string bins, but it was fun anyway, I made all 120 string Flying Geese (see Bonnie Hunter’s stuff) for a QOV, and Julia got 60 made (but she only had one day to sew). We had others who made 48-block QOV centers and then 2 who did kid quilts (30 blocks). Two ladies took home more strings to make another quilt each, and one asked me to bring more strings to her this week.

Look at all these strings … They go further than you’d think!

And look at these gorgeous blocks!

More Purple centered quilts

Mary Johnson — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 00:59:05 +0000

We’re still finishing up tops and quilts from our New Year’s weekend sew along. Here are some more photos to inspire your HeartStrings quilting.

Cindy’s top

Kat’s top

And another finished quilt from Jackie

Isn’t it amazing how different they can all look?!