Sew-in

Just a reminder that we will be having another sew in at the Grange.

Details:

Saturday, March 19
Time: 9:00 to 5:00
Place: Jeremiah Smith Grange
1 Lee Hook Road
Lee, NH

Lunch: Sandwiches and Soup

Everyone is welcome to attend and work on your own charity projects, or use the time to work on your own personal projects

Some tips for assembling blocks

If you’re working on our Lime Green Project and plan to make the top or the entire quilt, you might like to read over these tips.

First, when choosing my strips and strings, I like to use a variety of tone on tone brights mixed up with novelty prints to make a fun quilt for a child.

Our typical HeartStrings quilt for a child uses 24 blocks, set 4 x 6 and I like to add a border although many of our members find this 36×54 size perfect for their purposes. (See guidelines for piecing the blocks). For our Feb/March project we’re substituting a LIME green center string for our usual RED or BLUE.

Once I have all my blocks pieced I assemble the top in 4 block sections – each group of blocks create a diamond so I don’t have to worry about turning one of my blocks the wrong direction.

A walking foot makes it easy to sew through the extra layer that the muslin adds.

I use a slightly generous 1/4 inch seam and press them OPEN to decrease bulk. You’ll find it much easier if you’re going to quilt the top yourself and if not, the volunteer quilter will thank you!

Once all my blocks are sewn into the 4 block sections I assemble them into rows and sew the rows together.

If this size suits your needs you’re done — I always add at least one border to these small quilts — cutting it between 4.5 and 5.5 inches depending on the size of my print or my mood that day. Occasionally, I even add a small inner border. Today, I cut this border 5 inches and it will finish at 4.5 inches for a quilt that is 45 x 63 inches.

At this point, you could send the top to us to quilt and donate or if you are going to quilt it yourself, you could do a simple meander, you could tie the quilt, or if you’re like me, you can play with some fun overall quilting designs. I will choose one of my favorites from the Pajama Quilter DVD to quilt my top.

Yesterday’s sew-in

Held in Roberts, WI and attended by 17 quilters – we met to sew blocks, assemble tops, make backings, and bind quilts.

View all the photos from our day.

I also wanted to remind everyone that in addition to blocks and tops, we accept fabric for backings in one yard or larger pieces (100% cotton please!) Sheree assembled a number of backings yesterday that are a wonderful help to the quilters completing the tops.

A new project – Lime Green

We haven’t had a special project in several months so are you ready to make some kid’s blocks and quilts?

For February and March we’ll be making blocks with Lime Green centers. These will utilize our standard HeartStrings guidelines but we’ll substitute LIME for the standard blue and red centers.

You can participate by

  1. Making blocks to send in for group quilts
  2. Making an entire top to send in for quilting – this can be 24 blocks, with or without a border OR if you prefer you can make a larger quilt using our standard 48 blocks because we all know that kids come in all sizes!
  3. Making the entire quilt and donating it locally

Here’s some inspiration to get you started.

By Stephanie

By Darlene

In addition, for those of you without a stash of kid friendly scraps and strings; we are accepting Red/White/Blue blocks for Quilts of Valor for wounded or returning soldiers.

Instructions for RWB blocks

Finally, as always even during our special projects, we accept blocks made according to our guidelines using RED or BLUE centers.

Won’t you join us during February and March and make some HeartString blocks?