Heart Block Tutorial

Okay, this may be more like a loose guideline rather than a tutorial.  I originally created this block when I was at the Stash Bash last April.  Sharon (A Prairie Sunrise) was unable to come to the retreat due to being late in her pregnancy and so a baby quilt was planned and block contributions made using the Ruby fabric line.  Since there were only scraps to work with but plenty of white, I wanted to figure out a unique block with big impact.  I opted for the slightly off center heart and I love the way it looks.  It’s super sweet to see it in the full quilt sent off to Sharon and her beautiful girl, Ruby Verna.  The ladies who contributed the rest of the blocks knocked it out of the park, too, don’t you think? See the quilt details here from Chris (Freckle Mama).

So, here we go.  Finished block (without borders) comes out to 12.5” (your choice)

Choose your background fabric and the fabric for your heart (2 colors).  Roughly you can an FQ for your background will be more than enough and you can use 2 jelly roll strips for the colors. 

From your background cut:

1, 2” x 13” strip

1, 3 ½” x 13” strip

2, 6 ½” x 1 ½” strip

1, 5 ½” x 1 ½” strip

1, 5” x 1 ½” strip

4, 4 ½” x 1 ½” strip

1, 4” x 1 ½” strip

2, 3” x 1 ½” strip

4, 2 ½” x 1 ½” strip

4, 2” x 1 ½” strip

4, 3 ½” x 1 ½” strip

14, 1 7/8” squares

From EACH color cut:

7, 1 7/8” squares

2, 1 ½” squares

Take 1 white 1 7/8” square and put it right sides together with 1 color 1 7/8”.  On the back of the color square, draw a diagonal line from corner to corner.  Take to the sewing machine and sew 1/4” away from the line on both sides of the line. Cut on the diagonal line. Press open and trim wings. Repeat for all the white and color squares creating 28 half square triangle (HST) blocks. (see all steps here)

Lay out your block in accordance with the diagram below.

You can play with the HST  layouts if you want. The picture above is what I went with but the ones below are alternative ideas.  You can see, in the last photo, an alternating option I used for the original block.

Sew the blocks together, pressing seams open to avoid bulk then sew the rows together.

Trim to 12 ½” or 12 ¼” and voila! Your block is done.

I decided to make this into a pillow cover so I added 2 borders.  At this point, I basted the block to batting using a basting spray and quilted it. Then, I used Sew Mama Sew’s Tutorial to create a cover for an 18” pillow form.

Check out the quilting! Did this on my domestic and it's pretty even for a first time. I've never been able to and always had to put these on the frame but now I feel good about small projects getting done on the domestic, too.  Yay for small accomplishments.

(she really wants to lay on the pillow)


Cheers!
Beck

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day - Pillow Covers

****GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED**** Thank you to all who stopped by.****
The winner, by random.org number generator is Melissa!  She's the 34th entry out of 41. Congratulations, Melissa!
"Melissa Palmer said...

My family would go to the Christmas Eve service every year. So one year, back in the day, my youngest brother (12 at the time... yes, 12), got ALL. THE. WAY. TO. CHURCH... and then realized he wasn't wearing shoes as he was getting out of the car. Hilarious, and oh so typical of him :) We make fun of him every year for it!

Thanks for the chance! Those pillows are GORGEOUS!

Melissa"

*********************************************************************************
I may be missing a lot of blogging opportunity lately but I'm not going to miss posting a giveaway for all y'all!

Sew Mama Sew has organized a wonderful day again and I'm excited to join in and use this to jump start my blogging again. I've missed you so much, but that's not important right now, what's important is to get to the fun stuff.

I'm giving away these matching pillow covers.  They will fit a 16" square pillow form.
(Note: I am not including the pillow forms but they are standard forms from any craft store or Walmart.)

To enter, please leave a comment telling me a good funny family holiday story (any holiday if you don't celebrate Christmas).  NOTE: if you are a no-reply blogger or leaving an anonymous comment & do not include an email I can reach you if you win, your entry will be disregarded. The moral, please be sure to leave an email if you are one of those. Thanks! 

Giveaway is open until Friday, Dec. 13 at 8pm ET and I will ship internationally and will choose the winner randomly from the comments.

My funniest holiday story would have to be the one where my mother tried to kill the entire family one Thanksgiving.  We got to her condo and just outside the door, the smell was awful. When we got in, even worse! She told us she just made dad take out the garbage b/c it had to be the cat litter and while we thought this was stretching it, we figured, "okay".  No, about 10 more minutes and we couldn't take the stench any more. 5 grown adults and 3 adolescents started sniffing around the 900 sq ft condo looking for the smell. We all converged on the stove at the same time.

Hubs opened the oven door and the gagging commenced.  He closed the door. Mom profusely stated she just bought this, thawed it properly, it couldn't be the bird.  We opened the door again. She shut up.

I don't know who took the bird out to the back deck to torture the neighbors (frankly, I don't know how they all didn't come beating on her door b/c her smell had to be ruining their turkey day smell) but I know it wasn't me.

Mom started calling stores to see if she could find an unfrozen bird or breast. I opened the wine. Dad and hubs went to get the new bird.  The girls drank and then, like any family who needs to waste time, after we had a few under our belts, we started drunk Skyp-ing and I decided calling Ms Shay of Quilting in My Pyjamas fame, to introduce her to my kin was a good idea.

Seriously after that, Shay only answered one Skype call after that. I think she felt sorry for me but has ultimately realized that if she's not talking to me, the police will have no reason to haul her out of bed at midnight one night when one member of my family has finally succeeded in offing the rest and the police need witnesses to determine what happened when and how. Wise choice, Shay, I'd probably have done the same. -wink-  It's a wonder I'm still on her blog roll list.  The woman must not be as administratively judicious on her blog as she is on screening Skype.

So, while to this day mom laments her best plan had not worked, the rest of us are not so silently thankful our noses weren't all stuffed up that fateful day. (And yes, we've had Thanksgiving's since without incident.)

So, you want to win these pillow covers or what?  Share your tale!

Cheers!
Beck 

Pillows,pillows, who's got the pillows?

I have the pillows!  Using this post on Sew Mama Sew, I created covers for a couple pillow forms I had.

If you want a quick uplift to your couch pillows, these covers are the way to go. You can use any fabrics, designs, etc. Just follow the basic measurements and basic rules and go for it!  

First, I chose a focus fabric and then I added borders.  Very simple.

Next I quilted the pillow front and then applied the backing.  Oh, I love this simple, simple technique.

Last note, I've been saving these babies for a friend of mine. I don't think she'll mind that somewhere in the process of one, I lost a 1/4" or so and now the sizes aren't exactly equal. Heck, she has kids... in about a day they probably will all be distorted anyway, right? -wink-

Go, check out Sew Mama Sew if you've never been. It's a fabulous resource.

Cheers!

Beck