Category: hearts

Hearts and Ribbons

This is the month to see hearts everywhere, and I LOVE it!

Hearts have long been one of my favorite motifs and they often show up in my quilts.  My quilt guild, (Heart of Georgia is its name – coincidence you think?) has themes for some of our Show and Tell sessions this year.  

We always bring new quilts we’ve recently finished, but the themes let us revisit favorite old quilts that we haven’t shared in a while.  Show and Tell is always inspiring and this variation allows new members to our group to see some past works they missed.

So I’ve been thinking about hearts in older quilts of mine, looking around the house at older pieces.  

One I found was this one Hearts and Ribbons– a project I made in the first appliqué class I took. Anita Shackelford was the teacher.   An excellent designer and teacher, she guided me through the intricacies of needle turn appliqué.   Though some of my work is more casual these days, I owe her all the credit for my beginning stitches in this technique.  

This piece features hearts that were made and stuffed, then hand quilted.  Later, they were attached to the background including other appliquéd elements.

The stuffed berries and delicate embroidery just add to the rich details of the piece.

This was one of my first efforts at free motion machine quilting, too.  I think I used an invisible thread and cotton batting.  

I don’t suppose anyone is surprised that the featured color here is blue.

Blue and White and Red

Quick, answer this question:  “What is Sandy’s favorite color?” 

That line brought a big chuckle when I recently asked it at a presentation I was giving.

It’s a little obvious when my work is collected together.

 

 

 

But sometimes I like to add a bit of red and white to the blue, as I did in this piece that’s next on my list of “ready to quilt.”  

I’ve mentioned before that I like to work seasonally.  So a small project I made this year as July 4 approached was this one called Stars in Bloom.  The pattern came from Blackbird Designs, and I interpreted it in cotton and wool. 

The rich red flower petals are various reds from my wool stash, the most prominent being from that red cashmere coat I bought a few years ago.  The vines and leaves and blue stars are cotton fabrics.

 

 

I certainly want the quilt label to be unique.  It’s important to include a label identifying the quilt title, the maker, the date.  A simple rectangular piece of cloth containing this information is better than nothing, but since I began quiltmaking, I’ve enjoyed including elements of the quilt’s design in the label.

Ollie Jane’s Flower Garden has a lily similar to the one on the front of the quilt as its label.  Walker’s Pasture has a miniature photo of the front of the quilt on the label.  Mom and Apple Pie’s label features a flag (an appliqué element from the front – and the label you see at the right).

That said, I may have gone a bit overboard in this small piece.  The combination of hearts and stars on the front led me to include a heart and a star.  It took a big star (well, big relevant to the size of the quilt) to contain the title and my name.  Then an even bigger heart was needed to surround the star. Above, the view of the backside.  Do you think the label is visible?

As has become my custom, I embraced the raw edge on this label.  The star was machine stitched to the heart, then the heart was attached using the “glue stitch” I learned from Jude Hill, hand stitching the label through the quilt back and batting.  As time goes on, the raw edges will fray more, adding to the charm of the back.  Or to the tattered look, depending on your perspective.

More about Stars in Bloom:  This piece finishes at 12” x 17”.  The appliqué is a combination of wool and cotton.  The cotton pieces are hand stitched needle-turn appliqué.  Some hearts are made of felted wool and stitched down with a whip stitch, again by hand.  The quilting is free-motion machine stitching (incorporating some hearts in the design) using silk thread on top and cotton thread in the bobbin.

Hearts in the Kitchen

This time of year we see hearts in abundant numbers.  This symbol of love is everywhere, and often seen in shades of red.

I love the heart motif and have it all around my house and in quilts I’ve made.  This year I’ve been adding to my bowl of blue hearts in the breakfast room.  I made a few last year and in the past couple of weeks, I’ve been adding more.

I’ve used ribbons, buttons, and lace to embellish some of them.  In other cases, I just stitched and stuffed some of my favorite fabrics.  I added French knots to one.  On another I stitched pearls from a rescued strand I bought.  The fabrics include barkcloth, vintage ticking, African indigo batik, hand-dyed linen, bits of an old quilt, and fabrics from well-worn clothing.

This bowl of stories sits on the breakfast room table.  It warms my heart (pun not intended, but appropriate, I guess) to recall memories associated with each element.

Oh, I can use red fabric, too.

 

Photo notes:  The pitcher with heart is part of my Rowe pottery collection.  The wooden bowl (and possibly some of the spoons) is by my favorite wood carver, Ralph Smith.  The heart-shaped bark basket holds memories of St. Simons Island where I bought it many many years ago.