Reach for the Stars

Reach for the Stars is another quilt with the wonky hearts. This is another of my post-9/11 gonna get happy and positive quilts. Lots of pink and purple made just for me.

By the way, you can see the wonky hearts how-to (as well as the free-pieced letters tutorial and more) over at Bonnie's superfantastic Quiltville.

The words read as follows:

• reach for the stars
• Believe the Impossible
• Be true to yourself
• follow your dreams
• Listen to your heart
  

I pieced the quilt top in 14 days. Before I started, I planned to have these words as well as stars, hearts and asterisks (my name for the little * blocks that look like fireworks, snow, or stars depending on the context). I sewed the words, the hearts and the asterisks, but used sections of star fabric instead of piecing those. I really like how using big sections of fabric works in this quilt.

I sewed little rectangles onto strips, cut even, over and over again to get the border. So it wasn't strip pieced and I didn't use a foundation. I ended up with different widths of border and that's okay (altho the pic doesn't do the border justice at all. Sorry about that - this is one of my quilts that's in storage right now). I quilted free-hand fans in black perle cotton.

wonky hearts

This is the basic way that I make wonky hearts. There are many other methods to make hearts, but I've found this to be the easiest way to get a bit of a rounded shape. Have to admit to being out of practise with the hearts - don't think I've made any in four years.

First off, I start with a square or rectangle and cut through the middle of it. I like my hearts to lean so I cut at an angle. This particular square was 3 1/2".

Next I lay one of my heart pieces on top of a background piece so that I can slice through the fabrics at the same time. Just have to make sure that there is at least a quarter inch or more of the background sticking out. This is just a bitty triangle. Repeat for the other side as well.

This is what the background triangles look like before they get sewn on.
As usual with triangles, at least a quarter inch has to be offset.

This is what it looked like when I sewed both those triangles on. I obviously cut the one on the left a bit too skimpy.
Not to worry, I just made my cut a bit deeper when I straightened up the sides. Now when I say straighten - I mean a straight edge following the heart fabric.

New triangles are made for the upper outer corners, in the same manner as the earlier triangles.

After those are attached, you'll straighten the edges just like we did before, following the edge of the heart fabric.

Bigger triangles are cut for the bottom outer corners. For this step, make sure to at least hit the inner corner with your cut. If you make too shallow of a triangle, you'll have a flat-bottomed heart (which isn't necessarily wrong).

Attach those triangles.
Straighten the edges and join together.

To finish off the heart block, attach fabric to the sides, and top or bottom if needed. When I made "All You Need is Love" I only added the side fabric as I joined the units together (ie one strip of fabric in between heart units, not two).

Here are some hearts I've made recently. I'm not liking those pointy bits I'm getting on top of the hearts - I'm going to have to do a better job of not overlapping those top triangles. I also like it better when the bottom bits of the heart come right together - I like them more offset. I'll loosen up as I keep playing.

All You Need is Love

"All You Need is Love" is one of my older quilts. Well, older improvisationally lettered quilts. I pieced it in January 2001.

This is a quilt that ended up looking nothing like I originally planned. I was going to have houses in here and free-pieced tulips and stars. But as I started making the wonky hearts, I loved how they were looking and all the other blocks I pieced went into the orphan bin. I just experimented with the different ways I could think of piecing the hearts, some of them more successful than others. I learned that hearts are not a good block to just slice some off if the blocks are too wide - I look at those hearts in particular and go eeeuw.

I had thought to quilt words into the different hearts just like on the candy hearts. "be mine" etc, but the hearts are just too small to make it worthwhile - the words wouldn't be legible. Instead I freehanded wavy lines, which turned out to be harder than I expected. My lines kept getting flatter and straighter so I'd have to get chalk back out and draw wavy lines. I like the look of it, but freehand fans are definitely more fun.

And here's a picture of my Lily. The fabric shelves are one of her favorite places to sleep or hide - usually there is a sheet hanging down in front.

Lily spent 3 1/2 hrs yesterday locked in my closet while I went to quilting. She loves to dart in there and usually I notice and manage to foil her or else I'll leave the door open so she's not trapped. Not this time. You'd think she'd have learned her lesson, but no, she was trying to get back in there again this morning. She just loves to explore and hide.

Yes, that's a completely out-of-character project Lily is almost sitting on. I was doing some experimenting for a local quilt shop owner on whether or not a particular flannelly fabric actually sewed like regular cotton. The answer: a most emphatic NO. Way too stretchy and annoying. Turned out it was great for doing primitive applique tho. I'll show you that project in the spring - the appropriate season for bright green.

My sweetie and I finished watching Stargate: Atlantis (ooooh no, a cliffhanger) and have now begun "House MD." House is enjoyable enough, but I hate listening to Hugh Laurie without his British accent - it's just not right. Love the character tho. Don't care much for his underlings - all rather bland.

couple more possibilities

Read the previous post if you haven't already cuz this is more of me trying to figure out what to dooooo.

Another couple of border options. Here's a purply pink inner border used with that pinky red big border. And yes, it would be a full inner border, I just don't have enough of the fabric to cut it up until I'm sure.

I knew Dawn was going to cry at the thought of losing this really cool 3-colored batik border fabric. Hey, I love it too. What about in a smaller propertion? Here's what I did above only know the pinky red wouldn't be really wide (maybe 2 1/2 or 3 inches?) and THEN the funky cool border.

Think it looks much better this way, but is it the best? Still looks wild and there isn't as much focus on the Xs and Os as I think there should be. But it's fun. Aaaaghhh. Not making any decisions soon.

But as I preview this post, I'm liking the top version better than the wild one.

Geeze Louise, Pokey is getting whiney and begging for attention - she's gonna show me and start chewing up paper. Right now she's on an old envelope but when she hits the bank statement there'll be trouble.

the border that ate my quilt

I worked on putting the rows together today. It actually went pretty darn well. Had to add a bit to this O to get it long enough:

And rather than making a new X block here, I sewed on a large one, then cut it down to size:

So all my hugs and kisses are together now. I decided to slice an O in half, rather than make a new skinnier one. I like how that looks. And the extra X in the bottom row is cool too.

[NOTE: I'm showing this on top of my really old sheet that I cut up to use as a pin cloth.

But oh noooooo, disaster. The border fabric is completely and totally overwhelming. It looks horrible. Believe me, I am not happy about this. I want it to work, but it's just hurting my eyes (which means my hubby will really cry and beg me to take it away). I like my Xs and Os enough that I actually want them to show up.

I tried a bright pink which looked terrible and then this pinky red with purple bits (that didn't get used in the quilt at all). I kinda like it. Don't even think it needs an inner border.

Definitely better, but still not sure. It's pretty sad when the sheet I was using as a pin cloth looks better than my fantastic fabric. I know I am not not not going to put an orange or yellow border on there. They're still way down on my list of colors. Hopefully my recent online fabric extravaganza will arrive soon and one of the new fabrics will work. Tho I do like how this pinky red looks... Sigh. I hate it when a good plan falls apart.

I'm trying to get myself excited about learning French again. I was doing really well and then I got frustrated in not being able to hear the difference between "la femme saute" and "les femmes sautent" which are pronounced exactly the same way. Or maybe I'm tone deaf, but I hate it. But the more I put off getting back into it, the harder it's going to be as all the little tiny bits I picked up just go right out of my head.

Watched "Mean Girls" while I sewed today. It was a bit sweeter and messagier than I was expecting, tho I did enjoy it. And you're going to laugh at me, but I'm glad the Australian Open has started. Don't get me wrong, I generally hate sports and certainly don't participate in any, but for some reason tennis is really soothing to quilt to. Moves slow, you can look up when the audience cheers or gasps and you can always see the replay. Course, tennis isn't nearly as good as the Tour de France, but I've got half a year before that begins.