Love and Stitches Quilt 💙 💚 💛

This Love and Stitches Quilt is a pattern by Megan Collins.  In this pattern Megan has solved the problem of getting a pieced heart to actually look like a heart.  Typically a pieced heart is squared off and never looks right.  Megan takes two halves of a circle and puts them on a square and then sews the quilt on point.  It's a brilliant solution.  

I ordered this pattern and joined in the Love and Stitches Quilt Along for October and November.  The material I ordered for this was a preorder from Australia so it wasn't going to make it here in time for the start of the sew along.  So, in order to be a part of the QAL I made up a smaller version of the quilt using Alison Glass scrap fabrics.  

The hearts in this quilt pattern are huge.  The blocks are 12 1/2" square.  I wanted something smaller so I reduced the pattern by 38%. I'm used to rewriting patterns all the time.  My longarm is a nine foot and most longarms are twelve feet so there are quilts I want to make that won't fit my longarm.  I usually solve this by reducing the pattern. If it's an appliqué pattern it's simple.  You just reduce the templates and all is well.  But a pieced quilt is harder to figure out.  Quilting is all about the math and not many people realize that.  I can't believe how many quilters on Instagram that I follow that are engineers and scientists. They just come by the math naturally and are drawn to this art form. This quilt was hard to reduce because once it got smaller the templates around the half circle couldn't be used because there wasn't enough of it left to make a seam width on both sides.  I just kept working at it until I came up with the math to get it all to fit together.  My squares turned out to be 8 1/2" square.  Once my border was on I had a 40" by 40" baby quilt.  

This was perfect because that was exactly the size that I was aiming for.  I had been looking for a quilt pattern with allover hearts that I could use to make preemie quilts using scrap fabric from my quilts and the leftover batting pieces.  Quilting fabric and good batting are expensive so I wanted a useful way to use the leftovers.  I thought that making preemie quilts for the NICU that my son was born in was a perfect idea. That's why I wanted a heart pattern.  So, those babies could be wrapped in love!  My son was born at 24 weeks and weighed 1# 10 oz. He was in the NICU over 4 months.  I thought that sending parents a quilt filled with love from someone who knew what they were going through would be a wonderful way to use up my extra fabric.  

Once I got the math down I was able to make the pattern smaller and get nine hearts on the quilt instead of only the four that the original pattern would make.  It took a lot of work but was well worth it.

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love into your world❣️

THE DANA QUILT 🌸

This gorgeous little quilt is called the Dana Quilt by Amber of Alderwood Studio.  Amber is one of the @quiltersofinstagram that I follow.  When I saw this quilt I knew I had to make it because I've never been able to find something to match my weird shade of green couch.  

The pattern for this quilt is well written.  It even provides pressing directions for piecing which makes things as simple as can be.  It goes together quickly and easily.  

I used Kona fabric in Spruce, White, Ice Peach and Celadon.  I used the Celadon for the backing and the Ice Peach for the binding.  We're still quarantined here so I guessed at the thread colors.  I ordered Isacord in Swamp, Shrimp, Jalepeno and White.  It's really hard to match colors online.  

Once my pieced quilt top was done it was time to load it on my longarm ... my favorite part of the quilting process! This quilt was only 54 X 54 and I would be rolling it back and forth a lot so I decided to float my quilt top instead of rolling it onto the bar.  

First I did all the stitch in the ditch work as I outlined everything.  I used Aurifil Monofilament for my top thread and So Fine in the bobbin.  I used a 2.0 tension with a stitch length of 9 and slowed down my machine speed to 240.  Then I rolled the quilt back up and did the entire background in orange peels.  This takes some work as you have to tuck them behind the patterns.  I used Isacord in Swamp with a tension of 4.0 and a stitch length of 9.  When that was done I rolled my quilt back to the top and did all the peach areas then went back and did all the white areas and finally all the celadon areas.  I used the same colors in the bobbin as I did for the top so the backing, which is celadon has some very colorful threads. 

I used Quilter's Dream Wool batting.  I couldn't decide between Dream Wool and Dream Orient but I thought those large flowers might look nice with the puff that Dream Wool provides.  

I used ruler work throughout the entire quilt.  I quilted leaves on the four corner patches of each flower to make it look more like a flower.  

Binding all rolled up on the Binding Baby.

I've ordered some pillow patterns and I hope to make some matching pillows for my couch.  My couch is a very hard to match green color. It's a Danish Ekornes couch and the color is called Seagreen.  It's got a blue green vibe to it. The Kona Spruce fabric is a darker version of it and blends well.  

Here it is on my couch ...

My quilt was featured by Alderwood Studio on Instagram!

My Master Quilt Holder in action ...

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love into your world❣️