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❣️