Ravel Hearts/Glowing Hearts Quilt Along

Hoo-ray! The Parade I’ve been waiting for is finally here and I am ready to participate. You may think by looking at my Ravel Hearts quilt that I’m in the wrong parade, but I’m not. I did make the nine hearts as in the mmmquilts Glowing Hearts pattern but as I confessed to Sandra, after participating in last years Luminous Layers QAL with the eight Sawtooth Stars made, I was still starstruck and couldn’t pass up making another one.

I tested and made two Hearts last March, one in a light colorway and one in a dark colorway and then sent Sandra a mock-up of how my quilt would look. I have to admit the dark 6.5” HST reminded me of Cat ears, which I thought was funny and will explain later in this Post. The plan was made to make four light blocks and five dark blocks and I did not start sewing the remaining blocks until mid May. It was when I was placing the light blocks on my design boards that I realized a Sawtooth Star could be made by changing the orientation of the heart blocks.

Since I hadn’t made the dark blocks yet, I play around in PicMonkey to see how this would look first with the light blocks forming the Sawtooth Star and thought it looked better with the dark blocks. This meant I would have to cut more patches to make one more Light Block but it was worth it. I really love the way this layout looked and pondered if I should warn Sandra that rebel mode has struck. I did and was glad when she responded with “You Go Girl” or could it be Canadian for “I’m Gonna Get You”?

Here’s a pic of the Free Spirit E Bond fabrics I used for Ravel Hearts, which the name was inspired by the Ravel Unravel Ink Text print. The top gray print was what I had planned to use for the sashing. I’ve had this fabric in my stash for several years and was hoping I would be able to use it for this year’s QAL and the pattern made great use of these wonderful prints. I looked up the definition of Ravel and it means a cluster which is serendipitous since the Sawtooth Star does look like a cluster of Hearts.  

I added a two-inch black border to Ravel Hearts making it a 40” square. I machine quilted it with my favorite quadrant straight lines in CT variegated gray thread on top with a steel gray on the bottom. The Black backing was found in my stash. This was such a nice and welcomed changed from all o the larger quilts I made so far this year.

Along with making my Ravel Hearts quilt, I also had to plan my annual collage of quilts made for Celebrating a Famous Canadian Birthday which includes designing a logo. Since this was going to be Sandra’s ninth QAL, I thought the theme should be a Black Cat since it has nine lives, just like the nine Hearts in this quilt.

When I was searching online for a Cat image, I happened upon this one—it was too perfect and so mmmeow since this looks like Sandra, doesn’t it? This reminds me of the mmmicked logo I made for the Rainbow Neighbor QAL with Sandra as MMMaleficent which I don’t think you will find online…yet.

From the bottom of my nine Hearts, I am once again thanking Sandra for hosting another fun QAL. It was another great pattern and weren’t the Hearts such a clever make? When I was gathering my notes for this project, one of my thoughts when deciding to make this quilt was naming it “What Heart Thou” and list nine attributes I aimed my heart to be; Happy, Strong, Sweet, Brave, Big, Healthy, Tender, Kind and, of course, Rebel. This could be a someday project and I would make each Heart in different shades of one color. I think Sandra already did this as a Scrap Challenge. As I’ve done in my past QAL Posts, I like to mention looking forward to next year’s QAL and suggesting a pattern—I think a MMMystery Quilt would be fun and a great possibility for me to follow the pattern—-mmmeow!

You can view the parade of Glowing Hearts Quilts and Pattern Here!

UFOs with Eunice

Eunice is my Studio Tormentor who in my head tells me to sew the right thing which usually means an UFO, a very old UFO. I put Eunice in time out last year plus Country Threads did not have a 2024/25 Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge so there was no project list  and my output this year is lower than normal. Usually at this time of year I had 10 Finally Finishes as opposed to only six so far this year. I pretty much enjoyed making the quilts made and wanted to continue but Eunice had other plans. This week I have two Finally Finishes and two Flimsies from the UFO pile and also one flimsie made several weeks ago before I finished my quilt for mmmquilts Glowing Hearts Quilt Along.These UFOs include one flimsie made over twelve years ago and two which the blocks were sewn last year but felt longer. I thought I’d do a short recap in the order of when they were finished.

If there’s a UFO which bugs me, it’s the one with the blocks made and ready to be made into a Flimsy. I finished three flimsies and this Heather Ross Hexie quilt was the first one. For some reason because I quilted my QAL quilt, I wanted to work on this one because the Hexies and Triangles were die-cut  for what felt like were years but to my surprise I did this last year. Speaking of Tormentors, Susan, my Downunder Tormentor made a Heather Ross hexie quilt last year and I was inspired to make one after I saw hers. After all I had wonderful prints in my Heather Ross stash which has been sitting in my stash for too long and large hexies were perfect. I’ll write more about this quilt once it’s a Finally Finish and I need to ask Sue’s permission to include her wonderful quilt in my Post.

My two Finally Finishes are these two door quilts; the Marcia Derse on the left and the Asian Cranes on the right.

• Marcia Derse aka Rose quilt (can you see my name in the center using the letters from her Alphabet panel) was a flimsy I made over four years and I was tired of seeing it hanging from one of the cabinet doors in my studio. I wanted this to hang this on the hallway door leading to the lower level, aka basement, studio. I did a combination machine and hand quilting over the past few months and the binding was sewn down this past weekend. The Rose Door Quilt measures 22”x38”.
• The Asian Cranes was a flimsy made over twelve years ago and would have remained a UFO if Demando had not requested I make a door quilt to cover the hallway electrical panel at his girlfriend’s house. His request was to use colorful fabric and something Asian and I knew I could use this flimsy by reworking it to fit the needed dimension. It helped that I knew his girlfriend’s favorite color is purple. I did simple straight grid quilting using a CT Essential Thread in Violet. Asian Cranes Door Quilt measures 22”x 36” and I’m hoping it’s the right size. It might be a 1/2” too short and I know how fussy Demando can be.

This is the one UFO which bugged me the most as the blocks were started around ten years and there are several reasons why I don’t like the pattern which I’ll explain when I write a Post after it is quilted. This is the Jack and Jill pattern inspired by Missouri Star Quilt Company and most of the fabric is Marcus Bros. Aunt Grace Ties One On. Although I had more fabric to make a larger quilt, I decided to make only a 40” square.

I have to say this is my favorite flimsy finish since it is the Fresh Air Quilt pattern designed by Mary Etherington/Connie Tesene of Country Threads. This is one of the great patterns featured in their Fresh Starts Quilts book, 2022. I cut the patches in 2022 but did not sew the blocks until December 2024. The fabrics used were Amanda Herring’s Jane Austen and Brenda Ratliff’s One Room Schoolhouse. This flimsy measures 64” square.

While Hubby is still recuperating from his back problems, my late night downstairs sewing/TV time has been curtailed, so I’ve been spending time in my upstairs Fiber Room which is where my wool stash is kept. One of the things I wanted to work on was reducing my wool stash so I’ve already made quillies (wool circles) and thought I would try rug hooking. I finished my first piece which measures 14”x16”, die cut most of the strips and I still on the fence if I’m “hooked”. My first piece looks like it was punched rather than hooked which has neater lines. I finally improved, as you can see on the very tiny lower right rectangle. I didn’t like the backing I used, it may have been tufting instead of Monks Cloth plus still have a lot to learn about the hoops and needle. I do know I don’t plan on hooking large pieces and will stick to small projects. 

I do like making the quillies but there’s only so may mats and pincushions to be made. There’s always Wool Applique.

I am looking forward to the Celebration of a Famous Canadian’s Birthday parade feature the many Glowing Hearts Quilts made. See you on Sunday, June 15th!

Linking up with:My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

Daydream Dicey Log Cabin Quilt

My Daydream Dicey Log Cabin Quilt was completed in March but I didn't want to post about it until I could take a photo of it with the darling Granddaughter. After all it was made in celebration of her Eighth birthday and another one to add to her ever expanding collection. The delay in finally posting was due to not being able to visit the GP House for seven weeks and even though we've made two visits since then, there wasn't time or the weather and or the darling Granddaughter wasn’t cooperating to taking a photo. Well, today the stars finally aligned.

Back in January, I received my Ruby Star Society Quarterly Club of fat quarters from their latest collections. There has been a very few times I actually made something from these Club packets, normally they sit on my shelf for way too long. I knew I wanted to make something right away with HSTs rather than the usual strips and squares.

I've been collecting Moonkin Stitchery patterns for the past year and after looking through them, I decided the Dicey Log Cabin pattern would be perfect. It is available as a free download Here, (not an affiliate link).

I added a few more fat quarters from my Ruby Star Society, Free Spirit and Art Gallery stash since I wanted more larger focus prints. I also thought the gray prints I found in my search would accent the pink, teal and gold prints nicely.

This is a fun and easy pattern but I want to mention that it's very important that all of the blocks are sewn and cut the same way as per the pattern. It's no surprise the angled-challenge quilter, which I am, made the first block wrong.

I made seventy blocks, 7x10 layout to make a 56" x 80" quilt.

I machine quilted with straight and wavey lines in Silver Aurifil thread. The backing was a gray and white stripe print from my stash and the binding was a gray plus print. I named this quilt Daydream Dicey Log Cabin based on the pattern name and because it was a dreami project which I worked on over days at a time rather than all at once.

Finally, a pic of the darling Granddaughter with her birthday quilt. The Master Quilt Holder did an excellent job of getting her to sit for this photo. She does not like having her photo taken but she does love her quilts (that’s what I tell her).

I do have another quilt finish for mmmquilts Glowing Hearts Quilt Along but won't be posting it until June 15th, the Famous Canadian Birthday Parade.  I am pretty pleased with already having this fun make finished but I can wait to share.

Linking up with:My Quilt Infatuation/NTT