Cathy has also finished a purple centered quilt. I love how the yellow binding frames the quilt.
There’s still time to join in – the sew-along continues through New Year’s Day. We’re making purple centered HeartStrings blocks and backings for HeartStrings quilts.
You can find the guidelines here , just substitute a purple fabric for the center strip. If you don’t have purple you can still join in by making our red or blue centered blocks.
Won’t you join in with us? We’re making purple centered blocks according to our guidelines between now and New Year’s Day. You can make a few blocks and send them in or you can make the entire quilt like Jackie.
You can find the guidelines here , just substitute a purple fabric for the center strip. If you don’t have purple you can still join in by making our red or blue centered blocks.
Jackie chose greens and pinks to go with her purple centers and made this lovely color coordinated quilt.
You can play with your own color combinations if you’re going to complete the entire quilt or make a full set of 48 for an adult or 24 for a child but if you are going to send them in to Sue or Stephanie for group quilts make them scrappy so they’ll play along well with the others we get.
Part of our project for our New Year’s weekend sew along will be to bust some stash making backings. You can choose to keep these for your own HS quilts or to send them in for our volunteer quilters to use. I’ve written some guidelines below but feel free to email if you have any questions.
Backing Options
▪3.5 yards of a single fabric seamed horizontally and is approx 63×84 (length =two widths of fabric so will vary some from backing to backing)
▪An Off-Center 4 patch made from 2 or 4 coordinating backings
▪A scrappy backing – these can either be multicolored or from one color family and should not have any seams that will fall near the edges of the quilt.
Backing should be approximately 62×80 after squaring for our standard HS quilt ( if you are using a single fabric and your backing is greater than 80 inches it is NOT necessary to trim it down. )
Scrappy backs or single fabric backs are most appropriate for tied quilts that will have the backing pulled to the front for the binding.
While I will leave a selvage on a top or bottom edge of the backing. They should be trimmed off where they’re going to be sewn into a seam.
If you tear your fabric, the torn edge should be neatened up with a rotary cutter and without strings before seaming.
Instructions for an Off Center 4 Patch can be found at this link.
An example of a single color family, scrappy backing can be seen at this link and I will be posting some more specific instructions for a similar backing just before our sew along.
For our sew along (Dec 29 – Jan 1) we’ll be using our block guidelines but substituting PURPLE for our usual red or blue center strings.
▪Purple fabrics should read fairly solid
▪You can use a single purple fabric for the centers or go scrappy
▪If you don’t have appropriate purple fabrics you can always play along and make our red or blue centered blocks.
To get ready to sew, consider cutting some foundations and center strings ahead of time. You can review the block guidelines at this link.
December 29 thru January 1st
We’ll be having a HeartStrings sew along on New Year’s weekend busting stash by making backs for HeartStrings quilts and busting our strings by making Purple Centered HeartStrings blocks.
Join us for the entire weekend or just an hour or two – whatever fits your schedule. Stay tuned for more details.
Sarah has been busy for months and months collecting and making quilts and HeartStrings members helped out. She wrote:
On October 27, the majority of the tornado quilts were delivered and it was great. Don and I drove to Laurel County to help distribute them and had a wonderful day. Judy from the United Way made the arrangements and it went smoothly. A few were delivered to people’s homes due to illnesses or other personal reasons. Everyone thanked and thanked us for the gifts. They said they were so surprised that HeartStrings members from around the country were kind enough to make them quilts. We had conversations with many of the people and their stories were amazing. Some of them were just getting into their new homes or just finding new places to live. One lady told us all about her hardwood flooring that was being installed while she picked up her quilt. Thank you again to all HeartStrings members who supported this effort. Sarah
I don’t have room to share all her photos but here are three of the HeartStrings Quilts she posted.
Her favorite seems to be Rectangle String quilts and this is a beautiful example of one. Love the colors and the length – perfect for a guy quilt!
My time in Maine reminds me how peaceful and even meditative the process of tying a HeartStrings quilt can be. Not every top needs quilting and tied quilts are just a little more cuddly.
Instructions can be found on my MaryQuilts.com website.
You can view more photos from our Maine sew-in at this link.
We took a break this afternoon and did some fabric shopping at Marden’s.
Before and after our shopping trip we continued to finish quilts and tops. Jackie shared several she’d brought to be finished and donated — I loved the centers of these stars.
I continued to tie quilts.
And we continued to assemble block sets into tops. These RWB blocks were wrapped in a pillow case and sent by Sue. It’s now ready for tying.
Tops are being finished left and right AND I’m tying lots of quilts. This top was sent from Sue from blocks sent to her and it’s now tied, bound, and ready to donate.
Here’s one of Ann’s tops – love the double sashing and the piano key border.
And here’s Bev, our host for this annual event!
HeartStrings Quilt Project 