Glowing Hearts - Fabric Requirements

I am so pleased at the reaction to this year's Quilt Along! I've had some lovely emails and chats. I even met a new blog reader who lives on Vashon Island in Washington State, who learned of my Quilt Along through her membership in the Royal City Quilt Guild in Guelph, Ontario (love the global connections we quilters make, and thank you to that guild for mentioning my QAL). She is going to make the maple leaf version and donate it to the guild’s Home for Good campaign. She’s not the only American I know making the Canadian quilt as a show of solidarity and respect for a sovereign country. 😍

This week we will discuss fabric requirements and some selection tips and ideas.

I am sorry to report that I do not have the pattern quite finished, but should have it by the weekend. Here you are!

I've included the maple leaf Glowing Hearts instructions as well as a throw, so it will definitely be a good bang for your buck with three quilts within the pattern, each one quite unique. I’ve had a few real life happenings over the week, one that was such a happy event: having a late lunch/early supper in Windsor with blog reader ‘Cathy in Port Perry’ and her husband on Monday! That’s the second time we’ve got together for a meal in a week! Last weekend it was in Toronto, technically Mississauga. So let's talk fabric!

I should note that the original name for the quilt along occurred to me after I'd finished the second, bright floral quilt. I knew that the original quilt Winter Blues was a great name for that quilt, but not so great for a spring QAL! I had been thinking 'bright, vibrant, warm, floral, tropical' kind of words as I sewed it, trying to come up with a name when suddenly 'glowing' came to me and then HEARTS!! And you know me: I absolutely love double entendres: glowing hearts because sewing and quilting warms our hearts and spirits and I knew that other Canadians would get my double entendre, glowing hearts, without the need for explanation. In fact, one of my favourite t-shirts with sayings on (I actually have just three) says 'Glowing Hearts'. It's from The Bay (my heart is so sad about the bankruptcy-filing), their Grand Portage line.

So for those in other countries who may not realize, it is a line from our Canadian national anthem. 🍁

With glowing hearts, we see thee rise

The true North strong and free.

The second quilt was indeed glowing with the oranges, yellows and fuchsias, as was my heart with love for my country, and glee at the name.

And then, Elaine in Ontario emailed me, and that conversation inspired the third version which I am making during the QAL along with you!

Baby Quilt, Wallhanging or Boomer Blankie

This often takes me the longest: choosing fabrics that go together, and mucking about in my wonderful stash. The original Winter Blues quilt was actually quite easy because I had to come up with a finished, ready-to-use quilt within seven days! So that made me focus, and I ended up choosing the fat quarter bundle of ombré blues. 

1. If you want to make your quilt ombré, choose a colour you love and dig through your stash (I'm allll about using what we have) to get a nice run. You want six fat quarters that go from dark to light. Prints can work just fine, as you see in Winter Blues.

Tip: line up your six fabrics as I did, and take a photo. In the editing feature in your photos app, go to Filters (on an iPhone) and change the colour to Mono. This is what it will look like:

This allows you to see if the gradation works. You can see the stripe fabric was a bit problematic, but go with your gut and place an unruly one where you think it flows best! No quilt police or judging in this QAL. You can also squint your eyes to make the colours 'run' together, or, if you're like me, near-sighted, remove your glasses and take a look,😊 or just look at the thumbnail on your phone instead of the full size photo.

2. Place your run of six fabrics onto both the dark background and light background to be sure the darkest and lightest colours will still have a pop against the dark and light backgrounds.

Notice that the lightest heart fabric still shows up against the solid cream and the darkest heart fabric shows up against the solid navy.

Good to know: Diann asked a really good question last week: Is each stripe of a heart from a fat quarter? The answer is yes. One fat quarter yields the rectangles for one stripe of each of the nine hearts.

Very important: be sure your fat quarters measure 18" along the selvage and 21" from selvage to where the fold of the fabric would be. 

3. You need two background fabrics. This came about because the original bundle had eight fat quarters, and I decided I would use the solid navy and solid cream FQ for the backgrounds, hoping that the resulting ½ yard would be enough for the triangles needed for nine hearts. So this led to a design element, and to a fabric-saving technique you'll see when we do the cutting next week!

Dark background: ½ a yard

Light background: ⅝ yard

Why more than a fat quarter as I did? This includes the borders, one light and one dark, the sashing strips which are light (though Winter Blues used the eighth fat quarter in the bundle which was an ombré fabric!), and the cornerstones, which are dark navy. Those of you who are good at math will have noticed that my math doesn't add up (seems to be a theme this week in a certain country who shall remain nameless): six FQ for the heart stripes, two for the dark and light backgrounds, and one for the sashing makes nine. Know what I did? I added a FQ from my stash for the heart strips; 😉 it's the lacy greyish blue beside the music staves fabric. Note that I did not have enough fabric from the FQ bundle to do the borders, so you do need yardage.

If you want to do two completely different fabrics for your borders, as I did in Winter Blues, you will need 1/8 yard of each fabric, as you will cut two 1 ½" x WOF (width of fabric) strips from each one. If you want to do all four borders in the same fabric, as I did for my floral version, then ¼ yard will suffice. If you want to make wider borders, you will need more fabric. I kept them 1 ½" so the quilt would finish at 40 ½" which meant it fits on a 42-43" WOF.

If you want to do the sashing in a different fabric, you will need ¼ yard; otherwise it is included as noted in the light background amount.

This version used the light background for the sashing and another idea: do the cornerstones out of one of the heart fabrics instead of the dark (tan here) background.

The floral version also shows that you can choose six FQ that do not have an ombré effect; they just go together. This is a set of five FQ that my friend Rose sent me a few years back, during a pandemic lockdown I do believe. I added the orange and batik hearts border along with the backgrounds from my stash.

Speaking of Rose, here is a mockup of what she is planning to make for the QAL. She and Michelle in Scotland were my pattern testers, and Michelle checked my math as well.

This shows you that you can go with twelve fabrics for the hearts!😁They all work together, and yes these are from the same line, but you can mix and match as I did with the floral version. The sky is the limit: you could make all nine hearts different and keep the backgrounds the same, or go super-scrappy and use a few darks or lights that 'read' the same, or do rainbow!

Michelle’s heart block. 

Michelle’s husband walked by and commented that it needed to be ombré so she may have two by June 15!

Since the heart strips are all 2 ½", you could even use a jellyroll. Note that you won't get nine strips (one for each heart) out of one 2 ½" x WOF strip, so it will be a controlled scrappy look. I have a jellyroll and two background fabrics ready to go for a fourth version would you believe. Yes you would; we're quilters and more fabric and more quilts is always good!

Glowing Hearts

If you are making the red and white Glowing Hearts version, you still need six fat quarters. You won't use quite as much out of each one. 

Dark background: ⅜ yard - background for four hearts and border (my mockup has a slightly lighter dark red but should be the same dark red—or you do you!)

Light background: ⅝ yard - background for four hearts, maple leaf, cornerstones, and enough for a light border if you wish

Sashing: 3/8 yard - maple leaf appliqué and sashing rectangles and lighter red border

I will provide a link for the maple leaf appliqué. Once again Elaine, who sparked the idea for the Canadian quilt version, 😍 has sent me a paper-pieced maple leaf for those who might prefer that approach.

I must say that I love hearing that some of my American friends, newer and older, are making the maple leaf version and that truly makes my heart glow. I am a (most of the time) rose-coloured glasses-wearing person, and I personally know many Americans who are respectful of our sovereign nation, and do not want to take over Canada or even a part of it (the part where I actually happen to live). They write this in comments on Instagram posts, or privately to me in emails or comments on my blog. To that end, Elizabeth May, who is a truly wonderful human, co-leader of Canada's Green Party, and excellent speaker, said this last weekend at Victoria's Hands Off rally/protest:

Elbows Up, Arms Outstretched.🥰

Although I do really really like her, (and a really cool item to note is that she was born in Connecticut so she is American, but in 1978 she became a Canadian citizen and gave up her American citizenship) in Canada we have a Westminster system of Parliament, like the UK from whence it comes, and so we do not vote for the Prime Minister, but for the Member of Parliament running in our riding. Whoever wins the riding gets a seat in Parliament, (think of it like a 'point' ) for their party and the party with the most seats, or elected MPs ('points’) wins, and their leader, if she or he is elected in their own riding, will be the PM. I am really impressed with Liberal Chris Sutton in my own riding, and getting him elected (and ousting the absolutely useless con - abbreviation and lower case intended - incumbent) will make me very happy, but also will give a 'point' to the Liberals and we NEED Prime Minister Mark Carney to be our PM. Please please please Canadian readers, take ten minutes from your day on April 28 and do your democratic duty and VOTE. We've seen and are watching in real time what happens when citizens are apathetic/angry/lazy and choose not to vote. 

Off my soapbox for now.

For my Glowing Hearts quilt, I am going pretty scrappy (I think!) and using a bunch of reds from my scraps and stash. Here they are laid out from light to dark.

Note from sad personal experience this past week: prewash your reds! Even a quilt shop one may run (it did, onto my beloved SAHRR quilt, Arabesque). I will write a post about it, and spoiler alert: I saved my bleeding quilt by using Vicki Walsh's method.

Okay, I think that's it for fabric requirements and tips. If you have any questions, either write them in the comments or shoot me an email (see sidebar). Happy mucking about in your fabric stash and scraps! Next week we'll cut into our fabrics.

Head to SandraJaneQuilts to pick up your copy of the pattern if you want to sew ahead or make the throw.