Heart Centre Project Quilting 16.5

Quilt designs come to me sometimes by doodling on graph paper, at other times by playing in EQ8, or, as with this one, fully formed into my head.

The quilt is now for sale in my Etsy shop. 

It was Tuesday, our last night in Cuba. I was well into my third book of the week, a gripping biological warfare murder mystery, The Chosen Dead by M. R. Hall. Quite chillingly, may I say, exploring the world of pandemics and modifying DNA and creating smart vaccines...published in 2013! Anyhow, I’d stayed up a bit later than usual, voraciously gobbling up the story, and, although I still had a hundred pages or so left, finally, reluctantly, turned out the light. And… my mind would not wind down. I’m the type of person who, once the light goes out and my head hits the pillow, is off to sleep within less than a minute. Not so that night. It was sometime after midnight before I finally drifted off. One of the things I was doing in an attempt to slow my mind down was figuring out what I would make for the ‘Follow Your Arrow’ challenge. Well that worked out fine as you can see!

I want to give a nod here to my good friend Tish who sent me two screenshots of the challenge so that I could percolate some ideas while holding down my deck chair by one of the pools or at the beach! Because the US blocks many sites, any with a business attached, from Cuba due to the embargo, I had been unable to load Kim’s site. 

On Thursday I sketched a basic diagram of the quilt design. I knew I’d do the arrows and heart in solid fabrics, but was stuck for a bit as to what background fabric to use. Then I thought, what about a patterned one? I went to my stash and my eyes fell almost immediately on Aneela Hooey’s Sherbet Pips fabric and that was it: off I went to the races. The arrows on the diagonal were going to be a bit tricky but I decided to do those last. Pressure! Deadlines! The heart block got made first, easy. Next was the orange arrow. Lovely. 

I got stalled when I went to make the second side arrow and discovered that the pieces I’d cut for all four were only going to work for two of them since the top and bottom sides needed to point up and down, and the boys and girls on scooters could not be going every which way. There was a little bit of cursing myself for not seeing that, but I re-cut and got those four blocks made and then started to figure out how I was going to make the angled arrows. I made the first one Friday night and went to bed, aiming for a sewing frenzy all day Saturday. 

Lots of math ensued for determining the size of the square and what direction the angle needed to be cut and just exactly how I was going to piece this without paper-piecing.

I made notes as I went, thinking this might end up becoming a pattern. (let me know what you think about that idea) and so I was able to cut the pieces for, and then sew, the next three corner arrows without too much ripping and re-cutting. Thank goodness I had bought 2 metres of the fabric. I believe I got it on sale at Sew Sisters in Toronto, but don’t quote me on that; I've had it for a few years.

I woke up Saturday morning—actually it was the wee hours of Saturday morning—with a terrible sore throat. I took a cold/acetaminophen pill and went back to bed. Every four hours on Saturday I was taking another pill to deal with the extreme sore throat and headache. I fought the drowsiness and plugged away and by 11:30 I had all the blocks done. 

Four hours later, on Saturday afternoon I had a quilt top and enough sun to take an outside shot. 

I planned to use up what was left of the Sherbet Pips on the back and I knew I had two more pieces of the line so I rummaged around and found them, adding to the sides and bottom to make it larger. I loaded it and found a piece of Warm and White cotton batting that was almost the perfect size. I started quilting it Saturday evening,

getting not quite two-thirds of it done. 

Sunday morning I had to teach yoga. I rushed home, grabbed a coffee and a bite to eat, and got to work quilting it. There was a little over 2.5 hours before the deadline. I’d started making the binding before I left to teach yoga so that made me slightly more relaxed, knowing it was almost ready to apply once the quilt was squared up. I never do the binding ahead!

Remember I said I had almost enough of the batting? I was about 3 inches short in length! When I trimmed the batting because it was much too wide, I was able to slice a 4 inch strip from that leftover that could fit across the bottom of the quilt. The above photo shows how I whipstitch the edges together, butting them right up against each other right on the quilt frame. I have joined batting pieces with a wide zigzag on my machine, but I do find that it tends to distort and stretch out a bit so this takes no time at all to do and keeps the batting nice and flat. It's going to be quilted over, which holds it in place, but the whipstitching just adds more stability, especially in a quilt I plan to list in my Etsy shop.

A rainbow of threads used for the heart and arrows; 'Sky', which is the light blue, also was for the meander in the background.

Here is the back. When I bought this, I certainly did not imagine using the super-cool plaidish prints on the back of the quilt. Binding? Absolutely.

Label (not written upon yet) and binding. Isn't it a terrific binding fabric?

Closeup of the heart which, of course, got extra-special treatment. Hearts should get extra-special treatment and should be soft and snuggly, and ... open.

An indoor shot in my bright kitchen on the freshly-washed-by-MacGyver floor.

It truly is a thrill to have a vision in your head come alive. I’ve now listed it in my Etsy shop here. I think this makes a wonderful baby quilt which I would name This Way For Hugs: bright colours, boys and girls on scooters, adorable dogs and snails, good for either gender! However, I can also see this as a boomer blankie, or 'take to yoga class' little quilt, named Heart Centre. The idea of pointing in the direction of love, whether it be in the form of hugs and cuddles for a wee one, or of kindness and compassion for our sister and brother humans, acting from one's heart centre as opposed to from one's head or ego, can work for either use. I, for one, always try to remember the basic yoga teaching: ‘do no harm’. Come from a place of love, from your heart centre, and we can create a kinder community. 

Quilt Stats:

Size: 40⅜" square before quilting
Fabric: solids stash and Sherbet Pips by Aneela Hooey for Moda Fabrics

Batting: Warm and White 100% cotton

Backing:  Sherbet Pips as above

Quilted: on Avril, my Handiquilter Avanté: 33 001 stitches

Threads: pieced with Exquisite polyester on my Bernina; quilted with Essential cotton; Bottom Line in the bobbin

Thank you Kim and Trish at Persimon Dreams for yet another fantastic prompt. One more to go!