Project Quilting 11.3: Put a Heart on It


It's been fun experimenting with wholecloth quilting designs during this season of Project Quilting. When this week's challenge theme of Put a Heart on It was announced, I started sketching out a variety of heart-shaped filler motifs. Initially I had murky visions of a swedish woven heart or a log cabin heart, but both patterns had a limited variety of shapes and spaces to showcase the growing collection of filler designs. While researching Zentangles for design inspiration, I saw several Zentangle designs that resembled a crazy quilt. My own heart started to beat a little faster as my excitement grew over the idea of creating a modern crazy quilt!

My excitement grew as I teased out the details of my design onto freezer paper, which was quickly translated into fabric and thread play!

The blue feather featuring heart-shaped plumes was lovely all on its own, but I couldn't resist adding a little hyperquilting. Stitching just a few small details in a contrasting yellow thread totally transforms this design!!

Here is another detail shot of the quilting...

My love of thread resulted in several thread purchases while attending Pacific International Quilt Festival and Road to California. This project was the perfect opportunity to experiment with a bold color palette using mostly 40wt threads including:

  • Superior Thread's Omni 40wt in School Bus, Willow, and Blue Teal (large cones)
  • Superior Thread's King Tut 40wt in Limestone, DeNile, and Egyptian Princess (center spools)
  • Aurifil 40wt in Pumpkin Spice and Plum (left and right most spools)
  • Aurifil 50 wt in Medium Red and Medium Purple (orange spools used in background quilting and purple with the binding)


Seeing the Victorian crazy quilts inspired me to finally pull out my small stash of silk fabrics and play! While I love the look of silk fabrics, I avoided using them in my projects due to:
1. Silk fabrics are nearly 2x the price of quilting cotton
2. My perceptions that they were too delicate to handle and/or too difficult to use
3. I lacked the confidence in my own skills to do justice by these precious fabrics!

I chose a Thai silk with orange and purple threads handwoven together to create this beautiful salmon color. Some precautions I took include:
1. Using the silk setting on my iron to press the fabric
2. Backing the silk with an ultra-lightweight fusible interfacing
3. Installing a brand new top-stitch needle to avoid snags
4. Spray basting instead of pin-basting

Unfortunately one precaution that I neglected to take was cleaning out my iron prior to using steam to fuse the interfacing. Yes, my iron spewed out a few drops of old water that caused some discoloration along the edges of my precious silk fabric!! Thankfully these spots were totally unrecognizable once the background was filled in with quilted texture.

Other than this little blip, I absolutely loved, loved, LOVED stitching on silk fabric!! My only regret was waiting so long to give silk fabric a try. So be prepared to see more silk fabrics incorporated into my future projects!!
Crazy in Love, finishes 20" x 17"

Per the rules for this week's challenge, our finished pieces must have a heart somewhere on the front. It can be in the print of a fabric, in a block’s piecing, a theme we use or just something we tack on at the end. I was curious as to how many hearts I stitched into my finished design and so I counted each and every one of them. According to my calculations, there are more than 370 hearts stitched into my design, with several more that were lost while trimming/binding.

Adding to the precious factor of this project was using one of my all-time, absolute favorite ombre prints for the backing. 

Show the other Project Quilting participants some love by checking out all the fabulous Put a Heart On It entries featuring one or more hearts!

Comments

  1. Wow, your piece is wonderful! Thanks also for the additional information and the progress photos!

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    1. Thank you Deb! I absolutely loved making this quilted heart and so happy with the finished design! I am happy to share my process.

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  2. A beautiful inspiring project. Thanks for sharing all your great photos.

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    1. Thank you Laura! Sometimes when I am having this much fun, I forget to take photos of my process...so I am so glad I remembered to pause and snap a few pictures to share!

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  3. Hi Mel, your FMQ is so beautiful. You really did some great things with the heart shape. Please show it off at Free Motion Mavericks - it really is gorgeous (front and back)!

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    1. Thank you Andrea! FMQing on the silk fabric was such a joy! I will certainly check out the Free Motion Mavericks!

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    2. Hi Mel, thank so much for linking up to Free Motion Mavericks. Your quilt is this week's feature. :-) Thanks!

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    3. Thanks for showcasing my quilt! What an honor!!

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  4. Another beautifully rendered idea. By changing thread weight, some of your stitching looks like embroidery. So clever. Congratulations on a gorgeous finish and on using silk. Now that you're over that worry, I'm sure we'll see lots more in future.

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    1. Thank you Ann! This project was an absolute delight from start to finish. You will definitely be seeing more silk fabric in future projects and I may even explore heavier threads such as 28wt to mimic the embroidery work of traditional crazy quilts.

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  5. This is a wonderful idea and so much fun.

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    1. Thank you Lisa...I had a lot of fun stitching all the different heart motifs on the silk fabric background!

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  6. You are amazing! I love your quilting! what a fun take on this project and I love the motifs you came up with!

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    1. Thank you Kim. These challenges are such a fun opportunity to play with new design ideas and quilting motifs. I especially enjoyed stitching out the various heart motifs.

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  7. I'm blown away by your creativity and quilting skill!!!

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    1. Thank you! These 1-week quilt challenge themes really inspire me to explore new design ideas and techniques, plus they are so much fun!!

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  8. Be still my heart!!! So many imaginative heart quilting designs!!! Absolutely lovely!!!

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    1. Thank you Nancy---I really enjoy taking my favorite FMQing motifs and making small changes to create all new filler designs! The hearts were especially fun to stitch out!

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  9. This is soooooo amazing. Thanks for sharing all of this....very inspiring!

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    1. Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed these FMQing motifs!

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