Glowing Hearts QAL - Make Five Heart Blocks

I am happy that the method to make the bottom half of the heart has been so well-received! This week we are going to make the five heart blocks that are on the dark background.

I also think that we should show off our first heart blocks, don't you? There will be a linkup at the end of this post to show one heart block on your dark background (or whatever colour of background you are using). I admit this is also because I am so curious to see the fabrics you've chosen! Two of my yoga students are joining in with this quilt along and I got to see a photo of one block, and wow, I love it as well as what she's doing with the entire quilt!

SAHRR#2 - Aquamarine

The name of this quilt just popped into my head when I was writing down details in my longarm notebook. Upon checking that I did indeed have the colour link correct, I learned that the colours of this gem vary from lighter blue to deeper blue-green, but they all evoke the colours of the sea and sky, which is right up my alley or should I say beach! It's the birthstone for March, and the gemstone brings calmness, clarity, and serenity. It belongs to the mineral beryl. (Note to self for a good name for another blue and green quilt!)

The border is a perfect match; you’d think I planned the colours in the quilt from it! It’s actually a piece I bought many years ago in Alberta for a quilt back when my aunt took me to a quilt shop near Barrhead, which I just found out today is still there, and which my cousin‘s partner frequents! I had about 1.5 metre left, most of which was only half the width of the fabric but I was able to get four 1.5" borders and three of the 4.5 strips I needed for the binding. A few extra joins of half-width of fabric strips easily made enough for the binding with about a fat quarter now left. 

Gratitude and Glimmers #94

Welcome to my post for the month of all things I like and for which I am grateful.  This is out one day after the Thursday usual post time because I didn't want to interfere with this week's instructions for my annual Quilt Along. You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color. Glimmers are the little things that give me a frisson if you will, of joy or happiness or excitement or all three.

This first one was a definite glimmer when I read it on Instagram.

Glowing Hearts - Tutorial for Lower Heart Section

Are you ready to begin piecing some hearts? I bet you are. If you are like me, you rarely make it through cutting out an entire quilt before you have to pause and “just sew up one block”.😄 However, this week is just half of the heart, the bottom half. It uses a pretty unique way of making it. Remember you can pick up the pattern at SandraJaneQuilts if you want to sew ahead or make the throw. 

*Note that my Gratitude post will be out tomorrow so as not to interfere with the QAL.

Here are the pieces I cut out last Friday for my Glowing Hearts version. The maple leaf is rough cut for now about an eighth of an inch all the way around. I’m using the Crafted Appliqué™️ method for this.

Summer Vibes

First of all, Happy St. George's Day! He is the patron saint of England, the one who, legend has it, slayed the poor dragon. His colour is red. I'm a bit chuffed as my mum would've said, when I realize that the RSC colour of April is red, and I'm making a red and white quilt for my Quilt Along! She read all my blog posts, and I just know this first paragraph would make her grin in English pride.

When I made my second version of Winter Blues I wanted to make it in warm vibrant colours, totally opposite to the cool blues and icy background of the photo shoot. So I give you Summer Vibes which, I think, definitely is the opposite!

It’s actually spring, not summer, here in the northern hemisphere, and our pink magnolia isn’t quite open yet but she is the closest to a full floral background in my yard for today!

SAHRR #2 and RSC

While I was sewing up the throw version of my newest pattern, I started sewing the blocks together for my SAHRR #2. This was the one where instead of doing a round each week according to the prompt, I made a block. I ended up with seven blocks, so of course I had to make two more for a 3 x 3 set.

It turned out so well! I’m so happy to get that striped heart that is in the centre out of the orphan block drawer and into such a pleasing quilt.

Glowing Hearts Quilt Along - Cutting Instructions

Now that we have decided upon (or maybe there are still a few possibilities to decide upon) our fabrics, it's time to cut them up.

Be sure that your fat quarters are the full 18" x 21". If you wish to work ahead, or you wish to make the throw version, the pattern is available in my Etsy shop, SandraJaneQuilts. It is on sale for 25% off now through midnight on Easter Monday. There are instructions for three quilts within this pattern, each one unique. Once I have the Glowing Hearts version quilted and her glamour shoot wrapped up (see what I did there?!), I will update the cover, and send it out to those who have bought it. Here it is at present:

Arabesque Near Disaster

I am always wary of red fabrics, and with good reason: they have run on me more than once and nearly ruined a quilt. Yet I do not learn, and rarely think to prewash them. This latest near disaster has taught me to prewash them without fail, and so to that end, I have pulled the yardage off my shelf and done just that. Prior to this incident, I had washed all my red scraps when two quilts I'd made with scraps had run so I figured I was okay for this SAHRR quilt. I must say it is intriguing how certain light-coloured fabrics pick up the dye, while others do not. Here is what happened with Arabesque.

This was before the quilt had been washed. I admit I was a little concerned by the deep burgundy used in the on-point frame, some of the star points and the maple leaves in the four corners. It was yardage, an older fabric I'd had for some time, called Nana's by The Balson Hercules Group. I was fairly confident of the other burgundies because I was relatively sure I had pre-washed them all after seeing them run in the 94 Quilt and one or two of my scrap quilts.

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!

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.

Arabesque

And here she is, all pretty and toute finie!

I couldn’t be happier and more over the moon with this finish. Who knew it would end up so pretty, and, as people have commented and I agree, that it looks as if it was planned from the get-go!

Gratitude and Glimmers #93

Welcome to my post for the month of all things I like and for which I am grateful.  You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color. Glimmers are the little things that give me a frisson if you will, of joy or happiness or excitement or all three.

1. This is the fifth time we’ve been to Cuba but the first time we went to Cayo Coco. What another beautiful place! Here are just a few photos, none are photoshopped for colour. It truly is this eye-popping, saturated turquoises and blues. 

Damage from last year’s hurricane brought in sandbars and rocks that were not here before. It’s very shallow for a long way out. You can walk forever along the shore, kilometres of beautiful beach. 

SAHRR Finished Flimsy

I am just so darn happy to show you my finished flimsy for my SAHRR project #1!

Sorry for the inside shot but once again it was crazy-windy (hello, it's spring and I live basically on the shore of a Great Lake)! There was no sun today but at least I had some natural light on the design walll to photograph this beauty. 

Project Quilting 16.6 Harvest Apron

I love starting off the year with the Project Quilting Challenge, and I love the pace: six challenges over the course of 12 weeks. Yet each year I've participated, the final challenge always is bittersweet. Yes, now I can get on with my own agenda, but I'm sad to let the burst of creativity and, to some degree, ha, the intense focus on a project go.

Without further ado, here is project 16.6, 'Button it Up' where we were to incorporate the meaning, literal or figurative, of "button it up"  into our project. I went literal.

All those beautiful florals..and one maple leaf fabric from Northcott for Canada's sesquicentennial 🍁

This is my Harvest apron, a free tutorial by Inflorescence Designs. You can see a button in the centre of the waistband, and a toggle button at the bottom edge. Read on to find out what nifty trick the two perform to transform this apron into a little bowl or basket!

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!

Gratitude and Glimmers #92

Welcome to my post for the month of all things I like and for which I am grateful.  You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color. Glimmers are the little things that give me a frisson if you will, of joy or happiness or excitement or all three.

We had weird weather all through February: a lot of cold days in a row, a lot of grey, and a couple of times back-to-back days of rain one day followed by snow the next. This caused some beautiful ice-encased trees. Thank goodness it wasn’t too thick like a few years ago where many trees came down. This time the odd small branch fell, nothing major.

SAHRR Round 6

I have my SAHRR Project #1 round to show you today. This prompt came from Emily at The Darling Dogwood. We were to incorporate the kite block into this round. She gave two great ideas for using it as a smaller commenting a 12” block which helps for my Project #2. I had a harder time on this traditional round robin as to how to work it in. I ended up not only working in the four parts of the book into the corners, but also four more complete blocks!

Oh how I am in love with this quilt and I sure didn’t think I would be!

SAHRR Round 5

This week the prompt came from Brenda at Songbird Designs. She asked us to make quarter or half log cabins. For project number one, this really stomped me, but I am so grateful for the other hosts as well as other participants who share inspiration. Here is where this first quilt sits in its fifth round.

I’m not sure what’s going to go between the floral squares so I’ve left it so that I can either incorporate week six prompt there or extend somehow the week five into week six prompt.

More Blues

Since I got my Project Quilting runner, Diamond Girl, done in just two days, I did a little fun, mindless sewing. One of my goals this year is to make a placemat each month in the colour for the RSC. I got a dark blue one done a couple of weeks ago and so this week I decided to make a light blue one in my ongoing efforts to reduce the strips.

Since making these two, I actually have noticed them go down.

Project Quilting 16.4 Diamond Girl

Well? Did that title do to you what it does to me every single time? Give you an earworm? Seals and Crofts’ song from 1973? I may be dating myself but I’m okay with that. That year was a special birthday for me: I became a teenager.  So this current year holds another special birthday, gulp. I'll let you do the math! 

Here is my finished table runner for the fourth challenge of project quilting, which I’ve named Diamond Girl.

The challenge this time was to make a project where the dominant colour is the colour of your birthstone. I am born in April, so my birthstone is a diamond, which is colourless! That caught me for a hot minute. Well, I’m sure many of you, like me, think of white when you think of diamonds, and silver, gold and sparkle, which is why I made a predominantly white runner with silver sparkle in the background fabric.

Jasper Quilt Finish

I have another finish which makes two in a week! I figured I’d be able to get the Jasper quilt quilted between Project Quilting challenges, and SAHRR prompts and I’m so happy that I did. If only the weather had cooperated for better photos, but oh well, I can always add in one or two when the sun decides to shine on us again.

As you may recall, this quilt is going to my cousin Val, who lives in Jasper. As you may also recall, the town of Jasper was evacuated last summer due to a raging wildfire that roared through the town, destroying one third of the homes, various buildings and businesses over the course of its rampage. Val’s home was one that was burned to the ground. 

SAHRR Week 4

Happy Full Snow Moon! As I compose this post, the name of this month’s full moon is rather à propos since we are waiting for yet another imminent snowstorm. It’s been a lot of winter this year, but that is good for the health of our forests (ticks) and lakes (algae), albeit not so good for summer-loving Sandra.

Here is my glorious joy-filled design wall as of this morning:

SAHRR Numbers 1 and 2, and this year's RSC two blocks

Let me explain!

Project Quilting 16.3 Seacliff Beach

I think this is my favourite Project Quilting make ever and I’ve had several favourites, Winter Blues just last time! Here is Seacliff Beach, my lake quilt that holds my love of my favourite beach and marina, Seacliff, on Lake Erie.

I’ve had these fabrics for a few years, just before Covid to be more or less exact. Most were bought on one fun quilt shop trip. A couple were added, then subtracted, then substituted to become the final rendition you see here.

Blues and Backs

In this between PQ challenge week I’ve been plugging away at a few must-be-done projects. I haven’t sold any mug cosies for a little while and then in short order, I sold two, so I needed to replenish my stock of three lol.

I use mine every single day, twice a day: once in the morning over my cup of coffee, and then in the afternoon over my cup of tea! It really does help keep the drink warmer a little longer. The hats and teacups one that just sold had turquoise lining and trim; I always thought it was a perfect fabric for a mug cosy. This one has a hot pink and red checked lining and a piece of Hello Tokyo Robert Kaufmann fabric for binding that was a perfect match. The soft coral butterflies on blue is also the second one I've made in this pretty fabric and when it sells that's it, because you can only get two from a FQ. The link for these is here.

Gratitude and Glimmers #91

Welcome to my post for the month of all things I like and for which I am grateful.  You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color. Glimmers are the little things that give me a frisson if you will, of joy or happiness or excitement or all three.

When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. 

--Willie Nelson

1. I like this post Nine Things That Sewists do That No One Understands at Melly Sews written by her husband from the perspective of someone who doesn’t sew, but lives with a sewist. Numbers 8 and 9 I can especially relate to!

2. I know I've said it before, but I do love how Bella joins me every single morning for yoga.

A Second SAHRR and First SAHRR Update

For those who do follow me on Instagram, you may recall that I had a backup block as my potential centre block, the 2.5" strips blue and green heart block that was a test of one I'd seen floating around on the internet several years ago.

It became the inspiration for the second challenge of Project Quilting, which I named Winter Blues. I hated to put it back in my Lonely Blocks Club drawer. (I love that--it just came to me as I typed.) What if I did what I saw Kathleen of Kathleen McMusing is doing this year: make a quilt that is not a round robin, rather make a block or two each week following the prompt.

SAHRR Round 1

For this round we were to make a King's Crown block or any block that starts with the same letter as our name. I decided to do a Snowball block, and the original thinking was to put one in each of the four corners, and keep this round fairly quiet as the centre block is pretty busy. Let’s see how that worked out.

Yup. Not what I thought would happen. 

Winter Blues PQ 16.2

My quilt for the second challenge of Project Quilting is done. We were to make something that shows the visual effect of ombré, which is a colour shift in value or hue. As you know, my favourite colour is blue, and a couple of things came nicely together - a set of fat quarters sitting on a shelf and a random test block from a few years ago I'd pulled out as a possible candidate for the SAHRR. This is the result!

I first thought of calling it Twilight Hearts but as the design came together in fabric, and with talk of Blue Monday last week on the CBC Music programme I listen to, the name came to me: Winter Blues. January is a hard month for many of us in the northern hemisphere and I am no exception. Blue Monday, the third Monday in January, was actually designated by a UK travel company as the most depressing day of the year back in 2005, and the moniker has stuck. A couple of serendipitous connections made the name stick.

Jasper

Well this flimsy is sure a lovely surprise and a most satisfying result! You may recall Lorna’s Mod Bear Paw quilt that I started back in November. I had the bear section finished on November 19. The last update was November 25 where I had the lower section with the bear, bear paw blocks and trees mostly planned out, just not sewn together. At the end of that post I had said, What's next? Who knows?! I do know I will be adding in mountains, maybe in a log cabin style, a couple or more stars. For now, I'll sew all these parts together.

Well, the mountains (not log cabin style after all), sky and Aurora Borealis (no stars) are done and so is the quilt.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Project 1

I really enjoyed making my Scrappy Stars in 2023, and last year had a glimmer (yup, one of those moments) when I thought I might be able to do a churn dash block using the same idea—crumbs and strips in the colour of the month to make the main components of the block. Once I had Cradled finished and blogged, I got out my graph paper, fired up my math brain, and created a 15" block.

I love it! I plan to make nine for a quilt which I intend to give to the Windsor Sexual Assault Centre as I do each year for a child. The tutorial is below if you’d like to make this scrap-(sort of)-busting block.

PQ 16.1 - Cradled

I always look forward to the start of Project Quilting. It helps make January less unbearable. January has long been a hard month for me: spring and summer seem so far away and it is dark and cold. Letting my creativity bloom is a balm for my winter-weary soul. And let's just pause for a moment because seriously, winter in this furthest south part of Canada, Sandra, is pretty mild really. For example, I was looking for a photo last week and came across one of a wild crocus I'd taken on February 26 last year, so that's only six weeks away. I told the trees that same week on Lake Erie's shore at the end of the common path for lake access in my cul-de-sac to hold on, just six more weeks.

When Tricia of @quiltchicken put out the first prompt, Mythical Creatures, I was immediately excited. I have loved magic and witches my entire life, and fantasy is a genre I still love. I let that prompt percolate in my brain for Sunday and Monday, since I was deep into mountains and aurora borealis on my cousin's quilt, and found it difficult to just drop that train of thought/stitching.

A Look Ahead and A Look Back

The words came out of my mouth before my brain fully registered them, "Here's to 2025; we're a quarter of the way through this next century." Gulp. How time goes.

So here's a quick look back at 2024.

A look at my Quilts of 2024 page tells me I made 33 quilted projects. That isn't counting the countless (ha) makeup bags I made or three mug cozies. Eighteen of those were quilts, six were pillows, nine were either tote bags, placemats, or runners, and one was a garment, a pyjama top. A conservative estimate of makeup bags would be around 15-20.

Here are just a few.