Strippy Heart Quilt - Flimsy Finish

The Strippy Heart Quilt is now all pieced and it's rather large.  Took both of my men standing on the lounge chairs to hold this one up.  Not boding well for the quilting wrangle!!  But, let's forget that for a minute - isn't it pretty?

Remember that little pile of 2.5" strips I started with and wondered if it'd be enough?  Well, I had plenty for the low volume with a little to spare, but was about 60" short on the coloured prints.  Not too bad and not a problem given my healthy B&C stash to supplement from ;-)

I could photograph this quilt top from many angles and still not get it's best vantage - think that's just down to its size.  Although, it's big, it's not the biggest I've ever made but at 76.5" x 84.5" it's still going to be a doozie to squish through the machine.

I got the top all basted and only then discovered that the backing I thought would fit, doesn't.  So need to sort that before I tackle the quilting - gives me time to get my brave pants on!!

I might just love this one a wee bit!  (But I say that about them all, don't I?)

Strippy Heart Quilt - progressing

A wee bit of progress on the Strippy Heart Quilt to show you -

The top 8 rows and the bottom 12 rows.  Honestly, I have no idea why I decided to work a bit from the top and then from the bottom up.  Doesn't seem like my logical self, but no matter.

You can see that this quilt is not difficult in the complex sense, but it does require close attention to your cutting lengths and being organised and labelling everything so the rows don't get mixed. 

I've been enjoying it.  It takes about half an hour each time I pick it up to get into a wee rhythm with the laying, deciding, cutting, and piecing but I'm getting there.  Mostly, I just let the fabrics sit randomly as they come off the roll but now and again it does need a wee tweak (turn the strip upside down, piece in another 2.5" width, or skip a bit) just to ensure that there aren't too many occurrences of the same fabric in the same area or touching.  It's not an exact science and I promise, I am being much more hands off than usual! ;-)

This section is rows 1 -20 - I think it's growing really well!!  I think there are just 10 more rows to piece before there's a flimsy but my little strip rolls of fabric are getting to look awfully small - I wonder will it stretch?

What would you say is the dominant colour of this quilt as you look at it so far?  When I had it laid out on the bed for the pic I was surprised by how green it looked, but on the actual photo here I think maybe it's the aqua, or maybe not. Perhaps it's actually reasonably well balanced and scrappy?  What do you see?

Strippy Heart Quilt - Making a Start

I'm back to show you where I'm heading with this little 'quilt in a pile' I showed you last time.

First off, I should tell you this quilt is totally inspired by a photo I came across on Pinterest a long time ago and has been floating around in my head ever since.  To give credit where it's due, the inspiration for this make is known as the Have a Heart quilt by J Michelle Watts and there is a jelly roll friendly downloadable pattern for it here.  Please do have a look if you're interested.

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As you can see from my sketch above, my original plan was to make a similar quilt but in a much smaller size as a wallhanging for my living room.  I fattened up the shape of the heart a little, drafting on squared paper, and then blocked out a squared off outline to allow the quilt to be made from scrappy strips.  

Of course, I haven't actually had the time to make my lovely wallhanging yet, but now that I want to make a gift quilt, the drafted design is quite easy to upgrade to a more suitable quilt size.  The maths was not difficult but there was a LOT of counting those wee squares to multiply them up.  I like that sort of thing, so was very happy to do it myself, but if you don't you could always buy the original pattern.

The first thing to do was to get piecing all those scrappy strips of Bonnie and Camille fabrics together.  These will be the focus fabrics for my heart.

I just kept piecing pairs together, then pairs of pairs together and maybe a wee addition of a strip in a different colour to keep the same colours from meeting.  Not too much thinking, just kept stitching ...

 ... and repeated with the low volume fabric cuts which will be the quilt background,

rolling them up into a continuous piece as I went.  I didn't press my seams at all and still can't make up my mind if I should have done as I paired up the pieces.  It would have made it quicker when it came to measuring and cutting, but it was no big shakes to press out a length, then cut it to size after.

Here were my two continuous rolls when I'd finished piecing.  Still not convinced it looks enough for the whole quilt, but I guess time will tell if I did the calculations correctly!

The next stage is to work to my list of cutting sizes to make up each row of the quilt.   It takes a bit more concentration late at night than I was hoping for ;-) but I am quite excited at seeing how it will actually come together!

Coming soon ...

It seems that even though I try to be disciplined and finish up my WIPs, I am always looking ahead to the next quilt (or the next 5 quilts, to be honest).  I think many of us are like that, aren't we? (Please tell me I'm not alone.)

Having knocked a few finishes off my WIPs list since May, I am itching to start another quilt that I really want to make as a gift.  If my calculations are correct, this little lot is a quilt top in waiting.  I've got to say, though, that this doesn't look anywhere near enough fabric for a reasonable sized quilt. (Puzzled and slightly worried look on face.)

SO, the next part of the plan is that from this bunch of strips I will create a continuous length of low volume strips and a second continuous length of the coloured prints.  Want to know what happens then?  You'll have to wait and see - assuming it works - lol!