Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks

            Quilted Cora here welcoming you to the Quiltmaker’s 100 Blocks blog tour!!  For those of you who don’t know me, I am Renelda’s alter ego.  Anyone who knows both of us will tell you that I’m the better looking of the two, snappier dresser and better accessorized!  Well, enough about me (who typed that?) let’s look at Renelda’s block: Block #412 Blooming Hearts.

            Before I give you some inside construction info about the block, please look at 100 Blocks, volume 5, page 14.

             In the Designer’s Gallery, the #3 quilt is a bed runner using the Blooming Hearts block, yellow background and blue “flowers”.

            1. Hearts: Determine the size and number of blocks in your Blooming Hearts quilt.  I’m constructing the quilt to the right!  

            For this demo I chose to do a 4 block x 4 block wall hanging, so I have 16 blocks, 2 “flowers” per block means I have 32 flowers.  Each flower is comprised of 7 hearts which means I’ll need 224 hearts.  (I always cut more hearts than I need!)  I checked through my stash of batiks, thank you Hoffman Batiks of California! and pulled out about 20 different reds and pinks.  I try to create a balance of 1/3 dark hearts (75 hearts minimum), 1/3 medium hearts (75 minimum) and 1/3 light hearts (75 - you get the point).

            Determine if you will machine or hand appliqué the hearts (a lot of work) or fuse them to create the flowers:  Steam-A-Seam2 saves time and frustration!  My quilt will be a wall hanging which will not be handled much so I choose to fuse.  If your Blooming Hearts will be used on a regular basis it should be machine or hand appliquéd.

            After selecting fabric, cut it to fit fusible backing.  Fuse to back of fabric and trace hearts on the fusible backing.  Cut out the hearts.  The hearts are duel-directional, doesn’t matter if you trace from the front or back – the stems are uni-directional, it does matter how you cut them out.  After you check which direction to trace the stems, trace and cut out stems.

                     2. Make Flower:  Trace the flower template onto a fusible safe surface, peel the Steam-A-Seam2 off the back of the hearts and arrange them over template.  Press using a low iron just so hearts stick together, but not hot enough to melt the glue.

            3. Prepare Block:  Because you are making multiple blocks and you want the flower placement to look consistent throughout the quilt, make a block template.

           Trace the flower and stem twice and adhere them to an actual size block insuring flower and stem placement is the same for both (even being off ¼” - ½” will make your quilt look off center).

  Darken the template so you can see through light fabric.  Place the flowers and stems on the background fabric, align it with the template, and slide it onto the ironing surface and press.

      The placement template is next to the ready-to-fuse block!

Other possibilities, colors, combinations:

 Pansy with Stems