Nancy from Peace by Piece Quilters at St Mary’s Episcopal Church in Manchester, CT sent this completed top for our recent Purple Project. She reports that group members are finishing up a Red HeartStrings top and have plans to work on blocks for October’s Project Pink too.
She reports “there is such a ‘buzz’ at church about the Heartstring quilts! I even have a bulletin board set up for our projects and will be posting your website for people to refer to.”
Since we’ve been having so much fun with our special projects, we’re going to do another just for the month of October. In conjunction with National Breast Cancer Awareness month we’re going to make blocks for quilts that will be assembled and donated to Breast Cancer patients.
If you haven’t already, please mail your Purple Project blocks within the next couple weeks. If you need the address or have a photo to share of your quilt, please email me.
To see Purple Project tops and quilts already completed click on the album below
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| Purple Project |
Ask Alycia and her son who are making RWB string blocks for Quilts of Valor. Visit Alycia’s blog to see the blocks and read more.
That’s a question I get fairly frequently so I thought I’d address it here on the blog.
First, I want to make sure that everyone understands that the fabric foundation is ONLY required for the blocks that are sent in for group quilts. Because we are piecing these blocks on the diagonal from strings they have a tendency to stretch. By using a foundation and trimming the final block to 9.5 inches, we can make sure that the blocks coming from different quilters will all work well with each other. You can read the guidelines for blocks sent in for group quilts on our website.
If you are making a HeartStrings quilt yourself, any PATTERN and any METHOD of construction can be used and we suggest you think about the organization that will receive the donated quilt and keep their requirements in mind as you make the quilt.
String quilts have traditionally been foundation pieced on fabric or paper but there are several books that describe techniques for making them without foundations. Some of these don’t actually start with strings and they involve cutting rectangles or strips from scraps or yardage.
Some of my favorites
Liberated String Quilts by Gwen Marston
Strips and Strings by Evelyn Sloppy
While technically not string quilts, I also like the Stack the Deck books by Karla Alexander and Cut Loose Quilts by Jan Mullen for their stack and slash type quilts. I made one HeartStrings quilt based on a pattern by Karla Alexander that turned out very cute and was donated to the Ronald McDonald House here in Minneapolis.
You can find patterns that use a paper or fabric foundation in the books String Quilts with Style by Aug & Newman and Spectacular String-Pieced Quilts by the editors of Traditional Quiltworks and Quilting Today magazines.
Online you can find instructions at Bonnie Hunter’s Quiltville site and I’ve posted some simple instructions at MaryQuilt.com.
So whether you choose to piece blocks according to our guidelines for group quilts or piece your own quilts with or without foundations, I hope you will join us in making and donating HeartStrings quilts to your local charities. Don’t forget to check out our photo albums for more inspiration.
Many of you may be aware that HeartStrings blocks sent in for group quilts in the US are mailed to Sue Frank who then pulls block sets to send to group members for finishing and donating. She also pieces tops from donated blocks and sends them on to volunteer quilters.
Sue sent me pictures of a HeartStrings quilt she recently donated to the Mayo Clinic. She wrote: “Louise Cohen sent a beautiful set of blocks. They were so coordinated they had to stay in a set and needed a special presentation . As soon as I saw them I thought of underwater .”
Sue took those donated string blocks and created the quilt you see below.
Stephanie recently emailed me about a quilt show that included some of her donated HeartStrings quilts.
She wrote: “Julie who was coordinating the quilts for Africa organised a quilt show of the finished 101 quilts as a fund raiser. (Sadly for me, on the other side of Australia)
Here is a link to the photos that were taken. Not all of the quilts are in the pix, but 3 of my 6 are there, Green Sudoku, Baby Rails (photo 6) and the Heartstrings with the purple sashing (photo 39). All 3 of those managed to be in more than one pic. I’ll forward the newsletter about the show shortly.
This was a show with a difference, people were encouraged to hug the quilts, to increase the loving vibes going to Africa. What a lovely idea.”
In addition to the ones she mentions about, I also managed to see another one of Stephanie’s HeartStrings quilts in photo 5. You can see her quilts along with the others by following this link.
http://picasaweb.google.com/1960Julie/101QuiltsForAfricanOrphans
I’ve been traveling and busy with some personal projects the last couple weeks and haven’t made a single string block this month!
Luckily, I have a couple weeks left to work on Judy’s Use the Stash Challenge and add some more blocks to my 365 Challenge total.
For those of you still working on Purple Project quilts and blocks you also have another couple weeks to make blocks you’ll be sending in. We’ll allow a couple weeks into September for everyone to get them mailed off. If you’re making a Purple Project quilt yourself, make sure you share a photo for our online album and check out the new labels designed just for these quilts.
Michele wrote to tell me of another HeartStrings quilt and donation. She talks about patriotism and shares this quilt given to the family of a deceased WWII veteran.
You can read her post at her blog – With Heart and Hands
HeartStrings Quilt Project 
