I’ve been bombarding you with lots of garments, so I thought I’d interrupt regular programming for a quilt break. Just over a year ago, right before we moved to Tennessee, and I’m talking like a week before, I got the urge to make a whole bunch of heart blocks from Cluck, Cluck, Sew’s tutorial. I don’t know what possessed me to do this at such a time, but I probably just needed to sew something and not think about packing for a few hours. I had every intention of making a whole quilt during that week or so, but reality dictated that that was not going to happen. So they’ve been sitting tight in a box for all three moves and were just unearthed last week. I made them in a rush and they aren’t perfect. That would normally drive me up the wall, but I decided to just trudge through and use them despite the imperfections. 

I’m trying to lose weight and get in better shape, so rather than snacking between school and sewing and just whenever I feel like it, I decided that Saturday’s treat-between-working would be sewing my heart blocks into a quilt top. Right now I’m working on a huge commissioned project that’ll take the whole month, so giving up snacks for personal sewing time seems like a good way to make sure I still get some relief without getting fat.

I had to cut out some plain squares, and I ran out of the greige background so I had to supplement with a creamy white. I tried to make it look like I planned it that way since I’m not much for scrappiness, even though many of these blocks were actually made from scrap pieces. I ended up having to make two additional heart blocks to make the quilt a reasonable size without wasting some of the blocks. I was either going to have to nix two of them or make two more, so I went for more.

This quilt has some of my all time favorite prints! There’s a mix of Anna Maria Horner, Cotton + Steel, and of course Liberty. See this Susanna? Gosh, why do I not have more of this fabric?

And D’Anjou in this glorious purple color. I have always wanted enough of this print for a dress, but its not going to happen. Still, I can appreciate its beauty in this little heart block. 

I really surprised myself when I had enough batting on hand and backing fabric to finish the quilt. I grabbed a long hoarded cut of Anna Maria’s Garden Party fabric, and it was just serendipity. How beautiful is this print???

I don’t normally get the quilting done so quickly, but I decided that if this quilt was ever going to be completed, I was going to have to bite the bullet and do the quilting on the machine. I mixed it up, like I’m talking Meredith really living on the edge, with some straight lines in three directions. Its not perfectly done by any stretch, but its a finished quilt and I think it looks fine for me to keep. In any case, it was good practice wrangling a quilt under my machine even if I don’t plan to make that a normally occurrence.  

The binding is finished by hand. I never ever compromise there no matter what. The binding will be done by hand. And side note: if you fear hand binding, allow me to bring you over to the dark side. Check out my super simple tutorial for getting perfect hand binding one hundred percent of the time. It looks a bajillion times better and I don’t think you’d want to go back. what’s not perfect is that seam where I tried to fill in a small missing cut at the top of the backing. 

I’m happy that this quilt is already in use in my living room. The colors aren’t super me, as I normally go for a bolder, more colorful palette, and the style isn’t even that “me” either. But I seriously love it, and my family does too, so I’m happy. I’m happy even though machine quilting isn’t my thing and its not perfect. Far from perfect. I think the quilting community likes to call those “organic straight lines” ha! I don’t struggle with straight lines and accuracy in other sorts of sewing, but machine quilting truly is not my niche. I’m much more comfortable with some Perle cotton and a needle.

Anyway, its pretty to look at not too closely or critically. :) pretty florals cover a multitude of sin. I think I read that somewhere, right?

-Meredith