Glowing Hearts QAL Kickoff

Welcome to the ninth annual Quilt Along here at mmmquilts! Once again, this free Quilt Along kicks off today, on my birthday, and ends on June 15, what was the birthday of one 'famous Canadian', my dad. I am so glad you are here, reading this post, and I hope that you will join in. This year's quilt along features a smaller quilt, and, as usual, maybe even more so this year, the pace is nice and slow, so it's easily worked in with your regular quilting projects.

If you are new to the blog, welcome! I hope you'll peruse the tabs up top, maybe check out some of the activities and makes of mine. Be sure to follow me (see the buttons 'Get new posts by email' and Instagram on my sidebar) to be notified of new posts over the next 2.5 months of the quilt along.

Regular readers will recall seeing this quilt in January. It's one I designed and made in a week(!) for a Project Quilting challenge.

Project Quilting 16.2 Winter Blues

I used this shot for the front cover of the pattern. Yes, there is a pattern, which I will release next week for those of you who want to sew ahead! It will be on sale, and it has two layouts. We will be making the 40" quilt you see above during the QAL, but if you want to make the bigger one in the pattern, that is totally fine.

This year, more than ever, we need to take care of our hearts and spirits, so I hope that in creating this heart quilt, you will feel your heart being gently soothed, perhaps even held in a glowing hug of creativity. The original quilt used a set of fat quarters in cream and navy that I arranged into an ombré striped heart. Because I was limited to the fat quarter bundle, I put the hearts on two backgrounds from that bundle, as well as switched the direction of the ombré flow, both of which ended up being design elements. Thus, the design also lends itself well to using up stash in that you don't need a large amount of yardage. It's a baby or small lap sized quilt, but feel free to make it larger if you wish.

Questions:

1. What constitutes a finished quilt to qualify for prizes?

Either a completely quilted, useable quilt OR a flimsy, as in pieced quilt top, unquilted.

2. Is this pattern beginner-friendly?

Absolutely! Basic quilt-making skills are required. 

3. Why do you always do these exact same dates every year?

Answer: My very first QAL, Freefall, started in spring and just happened to end on June 15, which was my dad's birthday. Now there's a bit of a family story to my dad's birthday: every year my mum would put up the new calendar on January 1, usually one that her sister or brother had sent her from England. A couple of days after the new calendar went up, Dad would draw our kids' attention to June 15, flipping over the pages, where we'd see that he'd written on his day:

and then with a twinkle in his eye, he'd give us all a little grin and wink. We loved it. Mum? Not so much; though I think privately she did get a little kick out of his shenanigans. It didn't matter whether her calendar had boxes for the dates or not, he'd always note that 😉 famous Canadian's birthday. I think it was the third QAL year that I decided that since my QALs always started in spring, I should start on the birthday of the daughter (moi) of that famous Canadian, end on his, and it's been so ever since. I love honouring my dad in this way, and I know he'd sure get a kick out of it!

A completely different look which led to the Glowing Hearts name

This year, things are slightly different. When Kim and Trish announced the beginning of the 16th season of Project Quilting, they said they were not going to have any prizes this year. That resonated with me. So this year I've made a couple of changes. The first one is that the original quilt and then the second 'model' quilt made for showing QAL steps were made with my stash as opposed to asking a major fabric company and a batting company to sponsor me. This fits with my mantra of 'use it up' and my personal mission of opposing consumerism/capitalism, both of which have been in the forefront of my life since the pandemic. The second change is cutting back big time on prizes. I've elected to have just four this year.

Below is the schedule which I will update with links as the QAL progresses.

April 3 - QAL Kickoff - Sponsors and Schedule

April 10 - Fabric requirements/discussion - Pattern available and on sale

April 17 - Cutting instructions

April 24 - Method used to make the bottom half of the heart

May 1 - Make five hearts on dark background

May 8 - Make four hearts on light background 

May 15 - Quilt top assembly

June 15 - Quilt Parade begins and winners announced forthwith

Here are the prizes on offer, and I thank from the bottom of my heart these four. All but MaP have been with me since that first Freefall QAL, and MaP has been there for all but the first one:

Mad About Patchwork is physically located in Stittsville, Ontario with a wonderful online shop . They ship anywhere. They are offering a $50 gift card. *Note that this prize may be restricted to completely finished quilts, not tops. More soon.

Make Modern is a wonderful online magazine out of Australia. I've been a longtime subscriber and I've had three designs published thus far. They are offering a 6-month subscription to one lucky winner.

Leanne who hails from Newfoundland is offering two PDF patterns from her shop of bright modern designs.

Lorna who lives not too far from me in southern Ontario is offering a $50 gift certificate to her shop of fun creative designs.

I'll be back on the 10th with fabric requirements and two more examples of this quilt sewn by two lovely ladies. For now think basically six fat quarters (not quarter yards) and approximately (2) half yards for background.

While I was celebrating this past weekend in Toronto, after a chat with blog reader Elaine, the idea to make a third quilt popped into my head, so here is a mockup of it. Ignore the black background; that leaf is free clipart and I can't change it (but I may be asking a couple of friends for their thoughts/help!

So this is the other meaning to the Glowing Hearts name of this year's QAL.  I don't think anyone realizes, unless they live here, just how strong and ubiquitous the  patriotism has become over the past two months. I will be making one like this and I will provide the template for the maple leaf that is so deeply meaningful to us Canadians, now more than ever. My dad would love this version. And I want to acknowledge and thank several of my American readers who have let me know how shocked and sickened they are by this attack on Canada. And to my Canadian readers: VOTE like your country's sovereignty depended on it, because it does, and pp (lower case intentional) has made it clear he will sell out to America; he is a mini-trump through and through. Just yesterday in Québec he made comments (again) about defunding ‘woke’ universities if elected Prime Minister. Who does that sound like?