Sewing Room Shut Down

In the course of putting together my scrappy hearts quilt another iron bit the dust!  I've only had this iron for five months and already it was building up black deposits on the soleplate and spitting from the steam holes.

My attempts to clean the soleplate were unsuccessful and I wasn't thrilled about dancing around with a leaking problem, given how my last iron died, so I called customer service to request a replacement.  Unfortunately, the process required me to mail in the plug from this iron, so my sewing room will be shut down for a few weeks.

In the meantime, today brings my second year of blogging to a close and I would like to celebrate by sending some fabric and notions to one lucky reader!  There's no picture, because I don't have one yet, but I hope you'll play anyway!


In order to win, please leave a comment telling me what pattern you would use to make a quilt from a fat quarter bundle.  A winner will be drawn one week from today.

Linking up with Let's Bee Social.

Field of Hearts - Binding Options

My Field of Hearts top is finished!

I was trying very hard to have this quilt completely finished by this weekend so that I could hand deliver it, but unfortunately that didn't end up being possible.  This pattern was too complex for my timeline to have worked out, but I do think this turned out the perfect quilt for the situation.

Next up is a decision about the binding.  The block purple color is being tested along the top, and one of the blues used for hearts is laid out along the side.

The finished size of this top is 59.5 x 73.  My throw quilts these days tend to finish around 66 x 84 inches and I was thinking that this quilt was a little on the small side.  Then I measured another throw quilt that I had made in 2008 and it was only 54 x 60!  Very interesting how our perceptions can change over time.

Linking up to Let's Bee Social and WiP Wednesday.

Scrappy Hearts - Building Blocks

I had been hoping to have the "Field of Hearts" top finished for today, but I'm not quite that far along.  However, I did finish making all 110 hearts of varying colors and have started making them into blocks!

Since scrappy quilting isn't my forte and I wanted to do all these fabrics justice, I used a random sequence generator to distribute the hearts.  It was a quicker and easier process than trying to do "random" on my own (don't laugh!), which was just what I needed.  It's working out nicely, I think!

The first four blocks, at night.

I also acquired and pre-washed a very pretty purple batik fabric for the back.  I didn't have anything in my stash that worked well.  Apparently my stash could use a purple infusion!

Backing fabric with a pile of hearts coming through the machine!

Linking up with Design Wall Monday, MOP Monday, and Let's Bee Social.

Scrappy Hearts - In Progress

19 hearts down, 91 to go!

Last week I got busy with my rotary cutter and prepped all the heart pieces for Field of Hearts.  I cut my blues with an eye towards minimizing waste so it went a lot slower than my usual method; cutting strips by WOF and cross-cutting!

That done, I continued on and made four patches.

Then I was out of town for the weekend and didn't sew, but I've since gotten started on turning my four patches into hearts.  I will need 110 hearts to make the quilt size I have planned. 30 of them will be the light purple and 80 will be the dark.

My layout is going to feel quite a bit different than the original pattern.  The designer made all of her hearts with very similar background colors, whereas I have pulled two fairly different purples and will have more of a block and sashing look.

Linking up with Let's Bee Social and WiP Wednesday.